Global Warming and our Changing World

This article from a few weeks ago explains why global warming and climate change are really tools being used by politicians and groups to further their own interests. Those interests include higher taxes on things like gas and houses. It makes perfect sense that threats to our way of life can be manipulated in such a way as to shock us into action in one direction or another. However, the actions we are taking are, according to the article, not directed toward solving global warming.

The main idea is that cars are to blame, and that if the threat is as great as everybody's saying it is, then why allow us to drive cars? Why even allow hybrids, as they'll only postpone the inevitable? My take on it was just that the leaders and policy makers were taking their time, using it wisely to gauge the levels of public interest and potential before seeking to persuade any major changes. I think we're all interested in "fixing" this problem (now, anyway), but I'm wondering if some politicians still think that huge shifts are a ways away, and need to be worked towards, instead of implemented immediately.

During a Total War, major sweeping changes are necessary because they complement the major threat that can be seen and felt by everybody. The threat of global warming, however, is a bit more vague and distant. It might be hard to sell the public on doing some difficult rearranging in a time when doing nothing instead seems like it won't make that much of a negative impact.

Before we can start taking the drastic steps like eliminating cars altogether, as suggested in the article, we need to see some dramatic impact of the "wrong" we're doing already, and not just on a movie screen. It has to be real, it has to be devastating, and it has to be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that our ordinary everyday habits are going to kill us all. Then rapid change will be easy. But as things stand today, I don't think that change really needs to be so rapid.

In the recent past, I've expected us to slowly ramp our efforts up toward going greener. That's what seems to be happening. A gradual shift. And that seems appropriate, for now.