Reflections on 21st Century Life

Okay... I'm getting fed up with the Global Warming hysteria. Everytime something happens weather-wise people seem to jump at blaiming it on global warming. You see it almost everyday. Someone...somewhere is wringing their hands together decrying the impact of global warming... in magazines & newspapers, in the movies, the nightly newscast... for Christ-sake give it a rest.

And despite all the attention being paid to it... no one (Al Gore and Michael Moore notwithstanding) seems to know the reason behind it without immediately being contradicted by someone else with different facts & figures. The culprits apparently range from auto emissions to aerosols to cows farting. I'm not kidding. Otherwise decent people, of whom you wouldn't have a second thought about letting into your house to use the phone, come up with some really wacky opinions when it comes to the topic of global warming.

Now... the first question is... do I believe that global warming is occurring? The answer is .... Yes. From everything I've heard from a myriad of sources... the Earth does appear to be warming up... ever so slightly. Guess what... it's happened before... and it will happen again. There's this bright shiny thing in the sky called the Sun which periodicly goes through temperature cycles lasting for thousands of years. If you're looking for a guilty party in this debate... the Sun is a good place to start.

The next question is... can we do anything about it... in a meaningful sustained way. The answer is... nah... I don't think so. Not unless we want to change the course of human development so that the year 2107 has us partying like it's Thirteen Ninety-Nine.

And right there... I'm guilty of the assumption that humans are able to both cause global warming or prevent it. See how subtle that was. I submit that there are things that humans have little power to affect... one way or the other. For only if you assume that humans are somehow behind this global warming thing can you make the next leap and assume that we can do something about it... the usual solution being to stop doing what we're doing.

Today... as I was using up precious hydrocarbons whilst driving home in my environmentally-challenged, yet economical Honda Civic; I noticed a large group of well-dressed and freshly-scrubbed soccer-moms and day-care providers. They were minding an even larger group of happy-faced cherubs busily engaged in playful activities in the community-subsidized local park. It started me thinking... what would this group be doing on a Wednesday morning in 1399.

Well... for starters... there would be no park... heck, I don't even think there'd be soccer yet. Instead of minding the kids, mom would be out in the field picking up vegetables of opportunity or following livestock around to collect dung in order to have fuel for the family stove. In most cases her kids would be right there with her... but they wouldn't be swinging on swings... depending upon their ages kids would either be strapped to her back or helping with the hunting & gathering. There would be no WIC, no Medicare, no child-stipend, and no daycare taxcredits to fall back on. Mom's clothes wouldn't be Downy-fresh but then again she wouldn't be distressed over static-cling either.

Get my point?

All these doomsayers in the Global Warming panic industry sometimes forget (as they're hurrying to their next speaking engagement in private jets and limos) that life in 1399 wasn't pretty. Children were labelled as "gifted" on the basis of whether or not they could find enough to eat. ADD, ADHD, Epstein Bar and all the other really scary modern afflications took a back seat to things like polio, smallpox and bubonic plague. If you managed to sneak in a 40th birthday, you were doing really well.

Now... do we really want to stop doing what we're doing and revert back to living Waddle & Daub condos? I don't think so. And yet, there are people out there... enviro-fascists that deem themselves purveyors of the holy truth... that are advocating this very thing.

Let's not forget... these are the same people that have been telling us since the 70s that the Amazon forrest is being clear-cut to nothing. Why... they breathlessly quote statistics telling us that every year an area the size of Great Britain is being cut down... and all to make room for grazing land so that Amazonian farmers can sell beef to McDonald's. Excuse me... but thats's total crap... and we've all heard it said. Take a minute... do the calculations for yourself. That's 37 Great Britains worth of "old-growth forrest" gone missing from the Amazon since 1970? I don't think so...

Omigosh they say... we're destoying the "lungs of the world"!!!!! Have you heard this? Yep... you have. It's clever... I admit... this idea that the Amazon forrest is taking in CO2 and leaving us oxygen... just like lungs.

But it's bullshit too. Vegetation of the type found in the Amazon is a net producer of CO2... not oxygen. And it doesn't take long to discover this for yourself if you take a minute rather than defer to the hysteria driven Greenies.

They have no credibility as far as I'm concerned... and that's the REAL inconvenient truth of it.

So... the Earth is heating up. Okay fine. You want me to do without nearly all the life-enhancing/sustaining progress that the Industrial revolution has given humanity... and for what? So the sea doesn't rise? Only polar bears and Dutch people are really worried about that.

Don't talk to me about it... have a word with the Chinese. In their rush to send us defective toys and poisonous pet food... they produce far more CO2 than we do. Of course, Kyoto doesn't affect them either... so while they're "developing" and "emerging"... we'll be back in the Middle Ages breathing their air.

And the Earth will still be getting warmer...