Global Warming

There is a lot of stuff flying around about Global Warming right now. I think it’s probably because of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. What I find fascinating about these debates is how groundless everyone’s arguments are. People decide that the climate is changing, humans are doing it and it is a problem, or they decide that they don't believe that humans are doing it and it isn't a problem. Choosing sides seems to have all the logic and science behind it that choosing teams for touch football had in 3rd grade recess.

Now that the teams have been chosen, let the flame wars begin! For bystanders such as myself, I recommend bringing smores and sausages as the heat will be intense and steady. Perfect for some Q'ing! Watch as people make grand, sweeping statements with only a passing citation of an article in a popular journalism outlet. Scan said article for anything to do with the original citer's point. Notice how said article has citations and quotations from a more scientifically oriented media outlet. Notice how this article only has one line quotes out of context to support their stance? The idea that debates such as this can resolve anything is simply absurd. Everyone's mind is already made up so why engage in them?

From my point of view, the 'environmental debate' that we see in the everyday news has taken on the tone of political power. Imagine if someone could unequivocally prove that humans where the sole cause of global warming and that it will kill us all. All you would have to do is find a candidate that has been saying this for years and a good fear mongering spin doctor and political supremacy will be yours! Not that it would do any good as politics is still for sale.

So here is a thought for everyone that actually wants to do something 'environmental'. Let’s take politics out of the debate. Here are two things that I know. They are so fundamental that I don't think I need to make a reference and I don't think anyone will argue them. 1) Humans thrive because we have the ability to make tools that manipulate our environment to our advantage. 2) The climate on this planet is always changing and extreme environments are not ideal for human life. From these 2 ideas it's easy to make a case for using tools to manipulate our environment en masse to our ideal tolerances.

As I said previously, politics is for sale. Well really, pretty much everything seems to be so I will start with the money incentive. How much does air conditioning cost? How much does heat cost? How much does irrigation for our farmlands cost? How much does electricity cost? If I created a tool that could make a tool that would make places that are livable in summer, spring, and autumn without heat but uninhabitable in the winter without heat inhabitable, for less money than it cost to heat said place, would you buy it? If I could make a tool that will cool down places in the summer that are uninhabitable without an air conditioner habitable without an air conditioner for less than the cost of an air conditioner, would you buy it? If both of these things happened, the demand for electricity would go down thus reducing the cost of electricity. If we all did these things and climates and seasons returned to what the farmers who originally built farms on the land that now needs extensive irrigation returned to normal and the irrigation wasn't necessary, wouldn't that reduce the cost of growing crops?

I don't have a tool that everyone can buy to do these things, but what if we figured out what the total amount of money is for everyone that said yes to those questions above and applied it to making tools to manipulate our environment so that all of these things happened. Does it seem possible that this could happen? Could we as consumers make this choice based solely on lowering our own expenses?

Looking at the environmental issue this way makes the issue much easier to tackle. No political spins. No political power to be garnered from whether or not global warming is happening. No need to debate whether or not humans are the cause of global warming. If global warming continues, regardless of why, there will come a time when it is more cost effective to clean it up, than to create new, expensive tools that only treat symptoms of global warming in localized areas. It’s as simple as that, no need to argue about the source or which party knows how to fix it.

Anyways, this post is way too long so I will continue it some other day.