To Labby: I understand your feelings, and your compassion does you credit. Yes, we should remember that climate change affects not only our pocketbooks, but the very way of life for many. I feel for those people. The way they have lived may be coming to an end.
On the other side of the coin, though, isn't that what's been happening for millenia? The Romans invaded Gaul (now France) and forever changed the way those tribes had been living. The Romans invaded Britain and forever changed the way those tribes had been living. The Vandals and Visigoths pressed Rome from the east and changed the course of European history. Islam exploded out of the Middle East in the seventh and eighth centuries and changed the way of living for hundreds of thousands and redirected the fate of nations.
In April of 1815, a South Seas volcano exploded (Mt. Tambora) and the resulting ash cloud in the upper atmosphere helped bring on the Year Without a Summer in 1816. In the young nation of the United States, crops were frozen by June and July snowstorms, and river ice clogged Northern waterways all through the normal summer months. Hundreds of farms failed, and the resulting upheaval pushed tens of thousands of farmers, ranchers, merchants, and opportunists westward. This, in turn displaced the Native American tribes who had occupied those lands (after taking them from their previous tenants, of course).
A side note: That was also the year Mary Shelley began writing her prototypical horror novel "Frankenstein." She had accompanied her husband and a number of friends to Lake Geneva to swim and boat and play outside as they had done in years past, but it was far too cold, so her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley challenged the members of the group to create a ghost story. Mary won with her story about a giant creature with no soul which held only hate in its mind. Tellingly, the story begins and ends on ice, typical of the Year Without a Summer.
In Europe that same year, food riots brought on by shortages caused by the killing cold changed the way France, Germany, Britain, and most other northern European nations dealt with the poor. That was the start of the modern "social services" network to keep people from dying in the streets or rioting for food and shelter.
In the 1840s and 1850s, Ireland suffered the spread of a potato-killing fungus which, according to some estimates, took 1.5 million lives in Ireland and pushed another million out of her borders to other countries, most to America. New York and Boston employers soon learned to spell "No Irish Need Apply" in their sleep, and the immigrant Irish spent generations working out from under that prejudice and exploitation.
My point is that change happens. We either react to the change or end up crushed by it. It isn't fair, it isn't nice, and it isn't proper. But that's the way life is. While those suffering due to climate change deserve our compassion and our assistance, the continuance of their traditional lifestyle cannot be the reason we make world-changing decisions.
Ann wrote:
I don't have much to add, except that the opinons of today's scientific community mean more to me than a prophecy by Nostradamus.
I could not agree more. I have no faith in anything Nostradamus allegedly "prophesied," especially since his "predictions" only make sense when looking back on events and forcing them into one or more of his writings. I, too, am far more likely to listen to the scientific community than to Nostradamus.
However, I would like to point out that "the opinions of today's scientific community" are not unanimous on the subject of global warming. They're not even close. There are thousands of scientists who deny that humans are either causing or materially contributing to global warming, so we can play the dueling PhD game all day and neither of us would win. My point is that you (and many others in our world) have accepted global warming as the fault of humans without solid proof or even a solid majority consensus.
We can debate whether or not climate change is primarily our fault, and I have no problem with presenting facts on either side of the debate. What I have a problem with is those who make a statement based on the "certain knowledge" that human activity is responsible for destroying our planet when that "certain knowledge" is only an act of belief in something that is unproven. I can't emphasize this enough, apparently, because so many on the other side of the debate seem to put their hands over their ears and shout "La-la-la-la-la" at the top of their lungs when someone brings up a logical or factual objection to the assertion.
I believe Marcus made a good point when he noted that many of the things which might cause global warming are things that cost us money anyway, so we can and should do something about them. I'm all for that. I'm all for not wasting our resources. For example, I'm all for alternative energy sources for transportation if it makes sense from the economic, ecological, and resource management perspectives.
But I'm not in favor of making huge changes willy-nilly because a new climate report has been published which touts the virtues of action A over actions B, C, L, and X. There are too many reputable scientists who insist that we humans are
not a significant contributor to global warming to ignore their voices. This isn't decided, not by a long shot, and refusing to admit that there are two sides to the debate only makes one look dogmatic and inflexible, no matter which side of the debate one is on.
