Global Warming Fear? Less Than Zero

Global Warming Mug When you pour in a hot beverage,
the mug heats up and the oceans begin to rise...
Land mass disappears before your very eyes!

To responsibly recycle Glenn Reynolds on the issue: "I'll believe global warming is a crisis when the people who tell me it's a crisis start behaving like it is a crisis." Alas for poor politicians who are working tirelessly to suck billions and trillions out of the world's piggy bank in the coming decades, Iowans care, well, less than nothing.

Global warming ranked at the bottom in the Post's poll of Democratic voters in Iowa who were asked, "What is the single most important issue in your choice for the Democratic candidate for president?"

The top response was "the war in Iraq," with 33 percent, while 26 percent said "health care." Ten percent chose "economy/jobs," and others identified a dozen other issues. A smart-alecky 1 percent answered, "nothing."

But global warming ranked even lower than "nothing," with one-half percent. -- Global warming low on voters' list of concern

I guess the endless, mind-numbing hysteria just isn't getting the memo to the voters of Iowa this year.

Here in Seattle, of course, many of my friends and I just agree not to talk about it anymore. They're more invested in the year 2107 than in 2007. To paraphrase a comedian's line, Greenlings are only in favor of leaf blowers if they are powered by Al Gore's tears. Al Gore is, indeed, in their secret hearts , the secret President.

A few of them are busy touting "The World Without Us," the recent book envisioning life on Earth after all human beings die in some terrible eco-catastrophe, nuclear war, bio-terror epidemic, or simple heart-felt group suicide to save the polar bears. Reading the excerpts and gleeful reviews of this tome, it is clear that the book is this year's full-frontal eco-porn making Greenlings hard and wet the world over. I guess that the early eco injunction to "Save the Earth" has now had "for humanity" ripped out of the equation. You see, if it wasn't for us, everything would be, well, better. For the cockroaches.

For lo, in time, the great god-force of evolution would throw up another species as "The Crown of Creation." Arguing against this habit of mind must be a bit like arguing the fact that Mohammed had a bad bit of ergot poisoning back in Mecca, forgot about inventing such things as the teddy bear, and just blathered out the Koran. Well, all except for the argument settling beheading. At least so far.

Instead, arguing over the facts and causes of global warming in Seattle risks only a social beheading. Just the other day, our mayor set out to save Santa from the rising arctic waters. He asked the kids of the city to cut back on energy. I think he did this while lighting the city's "holiday" tree.

No, the fate of the earth is not a joking matter here in the city that most closely emulates a cold, soaked sponge, nor is the rise of the oceans. It is all clothed in a shimmering pale rose light of thoughtful and pious decency. And it is one of the most pressing issues of the moment even though it primarily concerns things one hundred years out.

Beyond the rigid sheaves of belief that guard this issue like some ideological vagina dentata, the internal element in the proposed solution is the hubris of it all.

Let's review:

• We've allegedly "warmed" the planet (all by our lonesomes, no help from the sun, that only happens on Mars.)....
  
• Warmed.... the entire planet ( a little, a middling, a lot: take your pick)
  
• Warmed.... by "not realizing what we were doing." (I pass over the fact that, in general, it is better for humans and all life to have a warmer Earth -- see: "Ages, Ice." )
  
• The solution is to, well, "cool the planet."

The word for this is "Terraforming" meaning working on and reshaping an entire world. And we're going to do this, I understand, on a crash program to go on for a century with no limit as to budget. (Kiss that HIV cure goodbye. Kiss freedom, sexual and otherwise goodbye.) We don't know the Earth is broken. We don't know how to fix it. So we are going to fix it.

Yes, this is the plan proposed for a race of semi-smart monkeys with a major oil-addiction and an unfortunate prediliction for violence. A race of semi-smart monkeys that can bottle water in Fiji, get it to a corner store in Seattle, but that can't even -- as yet -- figure out how to get clean water to most of the living people across the planet. You'll have to excuse me if I observe we don't even begin to have the knowledge and power to terraform the Earth. It simply isn't in the cards. If you believe the recent track record (seeding the ocean with algae,for example), the odds that we would really screw terraforming up are almost 100%. Toss in the UN and that goes to 150%. Indeed, given the fact that all the proposed programs -- Kyoto, etc. -- have zero chance of any meaningful effect other than shifting the wealth of the first world to the soon to be first world, let's go the full 200%. Add to that the continuing pass given to India and China -- world's worst polluters with more at the door -- and you'll have to excuse me if I join with Iowa this year.

Global warming. I thought I cared nothing about it. Then Iowa showed me that I could care less.

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Posted by Vanderleun at November 30, 2007 9:30 AM | TrackBack
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