© 2009 By Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
1995 Movie The American President, environmental lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade: “…global warming is a calamity, the effects of which will be second only to nuclear war.” Later in the movie, “… 10 years from now (2005) any cars with an internal combustion engine is gonna be considered a collector’s item.”
I enjoy the movie The American President, but when the lobbyist predicts a quick end to Earth unless radical changes are made, I realize changes were not made and nearly 15 years have gone by. The warnings were just political crap.
These dire environmental warnings have gone on for decades. I was in college for the first Earth Day in 1970. The central message: Earth was in trouble and could not last long. Global Cooling was going to freeze us out of existence by 1985.
Ten years went by. We did not have Earth-ending Global Cooling. By 1980 the bogeyman became Global Warming. Surprisingly, there was nothing between such as Global Tepid where Earth was threatened by tepid temperatures. Instead, first it was deathly cold then suddenly deathly heat. They predicted by the year 2000, Earth was toast, badly burnt toast at that.
Then more years went by and now, almost 30 years later, we are talking climate change and spending lots of money to keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Where does the power over people and the money go? To the government that has cried “Wolf” many times.
So, 40 years after the first Global Cooling Earth Day, the planet is still said to be on the verge of destruction. The public-relations battle has been going on so long that large segments of the population accept the environmental conjectures as fact.
Some believe the environmental pabulum, others do not. The divide is the notion that humans can actually change the climate. Some think humans are too puny. Others say it is a cinch to change the climate if they can have your wallet.
What is the target?
The central issue to me is something no one debates: If we assume humans can change the climate, then, what is the best climate for Earth? The act of reversing global warming means making Earth colder. How do we know when we have made it cold enough? What is the target? Importantly, how do we know when we have gone too far? What is the plan if we make Earth too cold? I would like to vote on a warmer or colder climate. How do all of Earth’s people vote on the best climate for them?
I interviewed a man who came to Las Cruces from North Dakota. In North Dakota he tied a snow shovel to the top of his car. When someone in Las Cruces asked, “What is that thing?” he knew he was where he wanted to live. Does that guy want snow here? Nope.
We have experienced 40 years of environmental warnings of global catastrophe. It is just people trying to have power over other people. At some point many Americans exclaim, “Well, I’ll be boiled in taxes, this has been a hoax for 40 years. How many more trillions of dollars are going to be wasted?” Even more important, how should we actually spend that money to protect us?
Instead of the political masturbation of climate change, our society needs to address some very real dangers. There are two dangers to humans: virulent pathogens and civilization-ending meteors. We need to dramatically increase the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s ability to research and develop new ways of protecting us from pathogens. Also we need to use the best minds to deal with the danger of civilization-ending meteors, unseen until days or hours before they potentially obliterate most of life on our planet.
Since neither of those efforts will give our government more control over us citizens, they are not interested. Are you?
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.