Excerpt from:
Keep Calm and Carry On
By Bill McKibben
Keep Calm and Carry On
By Bill McKibben
Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Missouri, you should not ask yourself: I wonder if this is somehow related to the huge tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that—together they comprised the most active April for tornadoes in our history. But that doesn’t mean a thing.
It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advised to try and connect them in your mind with, say, the fires now burning across Texas—fires that have burned more of America by this date than any year in our history. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been—the drought is worse than the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if it’s somehow connected.
If you did wonder, you’d have to also wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest—resulting in record flooding across the Mississippi—could somehow be related. And if you did that, then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming. To the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold.
It’s far smarter to repeat to yourself, over and over, the comforting mantra that no single weather event can ever be directly tied to climate change. There have been tornadoes before, and floods—that’s the important thing. Just be careful to make sure you don’t let yourself wonder why all these records are happening at once: why we’ve had unprecedented megafloods from Australia to Pakistan in the last year. Why it’s just now that the Arctic has melted for the first time in thousands of years. Focus on the immediate casualties, watch the videotape from the store cameras as the shelves are blown over. Look at the anchorman up to the chest of his waders in the rising river.
Because if you asked yourself what it meant that the Amazon has just come through its second hundred-year-drought in the last four years, or that the pine forests across the western part of this continent have been obliterated by a beetle in the last decade—well, you might have to ask other questions. Like, should President Obama really just have opened a huge swath of Wyoming to new coal-mining? Should Secretary of State this summer sign a permit allowing a huge new pipeline to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta? You might have to ask yourself: do we have a bigger problem than four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline?
Better to join with the US House of Representatives, which earlier this spring voted 240-184 to defeat a resolution saying simply “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.” Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether. Just don’t start asking yourself if last year’s failed grain harvest from the Russian heatwave, and Queensland’s failed grain harvest from its record flood, and France and Germany’s current drought-related crop failures, and the death of the winter wheat crop in Texas, and the inability of Midwestern farmers to get corn planted in their sodden fields might somehow be related. Surely the record food prices are just freak outliers, not signs of anything systemic.
It’s very important to stay completely calm. If you got upset about any of this, you might forget how important it is not to disrupt the record profits of our fossil fuel companies. If worst ever did come to worst, it’s reassuring to remember what the US Chamber of Commerce told the EPA in a recent filing: there’s no need to worry because “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations". I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re telling themselves in Joplin today.
Bill McKibben is founder of the global climate campaign 350.org, and Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College.
Link to complete article:
http://www.350.org/en/about/blogs/mckibben-washington-post-climate-and-tornadoes
Maybe we should be asking ourselves if these warming and cooling trends have ever occurred in the history of the planet. We should also ask ourselves if flooding and drought has ever occurred simultaneously in the past. We could go further and see if this is just history repeating itself and that maybe these things have happened well before there was ever man-made carbon production into the atmosphere. Perhaps we should look at how the sun may be causing some of these weather changes as well. But whatever we do, let's not first blame ourselves for polluting the atmosphere in a manner that doesn't even come close to what happens when a single volcano erupts, because if we do that, we start a dangerous decline into authoritarian rule over our lives based on the whim of those who would use any excuse to exercise unlimited power over the masses.
ReplyDeleteSo...are you saying global warming is a government plot? Or.....what exactly are you saying anyway?
ReplyDeleteI bet cksoper doesn't like to recycle either; seeing not the need; after all, garbage is just garbage.
ReplyDelete"Authoritarian rule over our lives based on the whim of those who would use any excuse to exercise unlimited power of the masses."
Wow; what happened to the good old days when people knew that: "An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure."
Instead of considering another point of view it seems that there are a couple of people here who would rather attack another by insinuation or misdirection instead. The issue isn't whether I recycle or that "global warming" is a government plot. Whether I recycle or not is nobody's business (I do, by the way, as well as fight a proposed air-polluting incinerator), but recycling has nothing to do with my comments and is not germane to the issue. It's just being used to attack another person's comments without addressing the issue, but that's what people do when they don't have a counter point. Typical liberal tactics that are employed all the time. And as far as a government plot is concerned, it was a liberal Democrat who recently said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." But the government of whatever party will do whatever they can to take any advantage to stick it to us. Take carbon credits, for example. They were conceived out of a perception that the earth was warming due to man-made effects. They were nothing more than a scheme to tax us. Now, we don't even talk about global warming. It's climate change, because things are getting cooler. And NOW they say, well, global warming causes both to happen, all while the global scientists have been caught red-handed manipulating the facts. But don't look at both sides of the issue. Cling only to YOUR opinion and count other opinions as baseless and not worthy of serious consideration. So, what about natural causes of "global warming"? Where is your answer to that? Or do you still intend to ignore that part of the issue and keep on the attack? Because if you do, I'll be more than happy to compare my facts to yours. By the way, I thought the article was a good one, but that it was not balanced. That was the point of my comments. I didn't attack the writer or demean him in any way. Why wasn't I treated in the same manner?
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that global warming is a political issue. I believe it is fact. I think there is clearly enough data to support the opinion that we are in a period of global warming that is to a large extent, man made.
ReplyDeleteIf we are choosing to act, we must decide for ourselves how to act. As I said, I think we are in a period of human induced global warming, so I will do what I can to minimize it. Granted, that's not much, but I feel I must because the future I see for our children and grandchildren, etc., will be one of food shortages, water shortages, massive refugee movements, and general chaos, and I would like to see that period in our future minimized.
As is always the case with issues based on the collection of data, there is room for doubt. No argument can be a 100% certainty when dealing with imperfect means and methods. But, in my opinion, the evidence that supports the argument that we are in a period of human induced global warming far surpasses the counter arguments in quality and quantity.
I find it interesting that most of the public discourse I hear that is suggesting that global warming is not a human induced phenomenon, comes via funding from the oil and coal energy companies and their media shills.
Now, I have a an admission to make. What I really do is listen to whatever Rush Limbaugh says and then do the opposite.
How does one follow that sentence?
ReplyDeleteThank you John Cox; a laugh is always a good thing! In keeping with full disclosure: me too!
Now, I wish to send greetings to "cksoper" and quote him - to help me achieve clarity.
"...but that's what people do when they don't have a counter point. Typical liberal tactics that are employed all the time."
This is the sort of comment that makes me not want to engage in conversation...
Assuming point - counter-point:
...but that's what people do when they don't have a counter point. Typical conservative/tea-party tactics that are employed all the time.
See the difference?
Yeah, me too...
Cksoper, you have already determined what "type" of people I am, and further determined that I am employing "liberal tactics" that are employed all the time.
Again with the point-counter-point:
Conservative / tea-party tactics.
See the difference?
Yeah, again, me too.
Perhaps in conversation you and me, sitting across the table from each other, with the ability to observe body language, etc., then perhaps we can avoid the misunderstandings that occur in this technological conversation.
As it stands, your earlier statement:
"Authoritarian rule over our lives based on the whim of those who would use any excuse to exercise unlimited power of the masses;" that statement continues to rankle with me.
Your follow-up post has not clarified that statement one bit.
If it is "of the masses" (as you say), does that not mean that the masses are WITH ME... as in of the masses?
"What I really do is listen to whatever Rush Limbaugh says and then do the opposite." Seriously? What does he have to do with our comments, or is that just a way of deflecting the argument here? I don't listen much at all to Rush. In fact, if I said I listened to him five minutes every week I would be grossly exaggerating it. However, I know that the one thing that he shares with his audience is that people should stand on their own two feet and make something of themselves and that this is the greatest nation in the history of the world that allows people to do just that. So, you do the opposite of that? Your comments sound too intelligent for me to believe that. However, that statement about doing the opposite of what Rush says isn't exactly original; I've seen it pop up everywhere from others who cannot possibly take it seriously, either. And what is meant about believing the fact of man-made global warming? Is it some kind of religion or something? If it's a fact, then all we have to do is accept it. There is no room for belief, or faith, when it comes to facts. That's the problem: no hard evidence about man-made causes of global warming. Which brings me to what I originally stated and what is being ignored: what about natural causes for global warming? You know, those facts that we don't have to believe in. Where do those facts factor in our understanding of global warming? Are they the basis for global warming, or are they simply fringe elements to an "inconvenient truth"? Or do they exist at all? What about those facts?
ReplyDeleteI must confess. I don't really listen to Rush Limbaugh. I was making a joke. I have probably heard him a total of 5 minutes in my entire life and that was enough. I do hear about what he says though and there seems to be a direct inverse correlation between his view and mine on almost everything. I can't prove this. It is a correlation. There is no cause and effect revealed here. Just correlation.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's how it is with climate change/global warming. All the "evidence" is about correlations between observations and, for me, there is enough of a correlation to be convinced that we have a problem and need to act to reduce the harm this and the past generations have caused, primarily in the pursuit of profit.
But, as I said, there is no proof. I can jump off a chair a million times and I land on the floor, but there is still no true proof that that this will happen next time. There is, however, a strong correlation from past observations that suggests that if I jump off a building, I may have a problem.
I, and those who think as I do will continue to act in a manner that we feel will help the human race to survive its future. I do not feel the need to convince you of anything (and doubt I could) just as I do not feel the need to try to prove evolution or the big bang.
Good enough and well stated. Actually, my position is to try to keep an open mind to any empirical evidence, so you could very well convince me of your position given the proper foundation. I think that Katherine has it right when she says that talking face to face (I'm paraphrasing here) gives us a better idea of the mindset of the other person rather than relying on the written word. If we were having an actual conversation we might be more inclined to understand the other. However, nobody has addressed the issue that I brought up about natural causes being the basis of global warming. I'm not saying it's the only cause or the main cause, but that it should be considered as a possible cause. That's all. I'm tempted to say that let's just agree to disagree, but that's a common misunderstanding of what people mean to say. If we were to agree to respectfully disagree, then we can get to the point and listen to the other points of view. Then we can consider all aspects as to the cause of climate change. I will at least recognize that climate change seems to be real. I also see how natural causes are stirring the weather. Adding to that are past weather trends that mirror what we are now experiencing and that those trends predate the industrial revolution way into the past. Those would be disturbing facts if all I wanted to do was focus on man's causes of climate change, but it wouldn't eliminate, in my mind, man's possible contribution to the current climate issues. Evidently, I seem to be the only one here who is willing to consider all possible causes of climate change including man's. Why is that? Is it really that much of a threat, outside of Al Gore and those that sell carbon credits, that climate change may be a natural phenomenon?
ReplyDeleteI appreciate cksoper’s perspective on global warming as much as I am able. Moreover, by virtue of keeping an open mind he has successfully laid claim to the high moral ground.
ReplyDeleteAs with so many important issues in life, there is no indisputable – cause and effect - evidence to support the existence of man-made global warming, at least not at this time. And even if there were, the political will needed to take significant action in a timely manner is not there, and may well never be.
The problem is, the environmental consequences of being right about man-made global warming will likely be catastrophic, while being wrong will do little more than create a cleaner environment and put our world economy on the right track. (Note: Given the overriding influence of private industry on government policy, it is difficult to view concerns over increased government control as anything but quaint.)
Some of the comments posted reflect personal views of the world in which we live, and will likely change over the course of a lifetime. The trick is to allow those shifts to occur, not only in ourselves, but in others, and in their own time.
Admittedly, this comment strays far and wide from the issue of global warming, but that is because I sense a bit of the devil’s advocate in some of cksoper’s questions, and it is not unusual for some people to “kick the hornet’s nest” just to see what flies out.