Another Inconvenient Truth: Are We Too Divided to Close the Ideological Gap?
Some days my hope wavers that this polarized American society can get anywhere meaningful. The communication gap is so wide and prickly. That goes for environmental issues, political ones, cultural ones and any other kinds of ones. Sometimes it just seems hopeless to me. Or at least very fatiguing.
Consider my most recent sustainablog post — NASA Maps Global CO2 Patterns; Produces More Science for Nonbelievers to Dispute.
I showed some exasperation in that post, too. I wondered how science, a system based on factual discovery as means of proving (or disproving) a hypothesis, is so controversial as it relates to environmental matters. I wondered — and continue to wonder — how two people can look at facts of science and pick and choose what to believe and then vehemently disagree with each other.
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An Inconvenient Truth
That is to say, for example, one person may consider the science presented by former Vice President Al Gore, a Nobel Prize winner (and Academy Award winner) for his efforts related to educating the world about global warming, and says, “We must alter our behaviors to keep climate change from reaching its full, destructive potential. We have a role in what is happening on the planet, and should make sure our actions are positive, or at least not unnecessarily negative.”
Another watches the same presentation, An Inconvenient Truth, and says, “What a crock. I don’t believe it. So I’m not going to recycle, or support a shift in energy policy or even accept any need for change as a possibility. I wish everyone would stop talking about it.”
It continues to perplex me that we’re so divided on such crucial issues, especially ones supported by facts, data, numbers, intelligent results.
In that NASA post, I started by putting forward a map that was recently published by one of the leading American governmental agencies for discovery and exploration. While I have some general reservations about trusting government or about taking information wholesale from sources of any kind, I do feel it’s reasonable, if not downright necessary, to release control of some things in this world.
For instance, I am not a doctor, a pilot, or a carpenter. I think it’s in my best interest to leave those areas of expertise to the professionals who’ve spent their lives working on those skills and knowledge sets.
So I trust that when science proves global warming is exacerbated by human activities, and that said scientific evidence even is accepted, finally, by the evangelical administration of President George W. Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency and NASA. And when that science receives global appreciation and acclaim for Al Gore, rather than overwhelming dissent followed by corrective theories, it is probably in my interest to act upon that information.
Now, that’s not the same as saying that I do so in utter blindness. But if I were to completely ignore the information, wouldn’t that be equally blind and equally ignorant? And that seems too often to be the case, as it pertains to the poles of divide.
Naysayers who comment against things written here at sustainablog seem to often do it with curiously strong confidence that global warming is a hoax and to believe otherwise must be a certain dagger through the heart of, say, my credibility as a blogger. They seem to figure that my believing is foolish, and I can’t understand why they choose to be so presumptious and equally foolish in ignoring issues.
What If?
Here is how I see this idea of global warming, and I think it’s a pretty logical basic approach: What if?
Now, I have posed that question before and a commenter had a decent enough response, essentially saying: It is not worth it to change whole global systems upon the mere what-if of the world heading toward destruction.
But when I pose the “What If” question, it really is a matter of attempting to get people, in a non-threatening way, to just think for themselves and draw on some logic. It’s not a baseless what-if meant to create a loophole for the lazy naysayer prone to loathe change and self-improvement. It’s an “At the least consider that the anticipated outcome is far too dire to allow apathy to have any role in our future” kind of what-if.
When Is Enough Enough?
So again I ask the naysayers who frequent this blog, and vent their frustration that people like me are so, what they seemingly consider to be, incorrigibly gullible and ignorant as to buy into a preserve-the-planet mentality:
- At what point do we have enough science to actually respect it — and act?
- At what point do we think the voluminous depth of facts we’ve accumulated are enough to use for measures of averting the what-if doomsday scenario?
- At what point should we all care that if the world, particularly because of human activities, is in fact heading toward a very bad situation, we might want to have some foresight and proactively work to ease that unthinkable burden?
Nuance of Language
Now, with respect to one naysayer in particular who commented on my recent NASA post, spouting the usual refusal to buy into such foresight and planning because he’s annoyed by people like me using less-than-concrete words such as “might, maybe, could” to describe this end game…
I write here at sustainablog as a means of facilitating discussion about some very significant ideas and issues that we, as a whole society, inclusive of both ends of the ever-growing ideological divide, need to resolve.
The fact is that I am not a scientist, so I do not propagate the findings on global warming as if they were my own. I discuss them because they are ideas worth discussing. I step aside to allow the experts who have given their lives to the discovery of facts to do their work.
I appreciate scientists, pilots, carpenters, teachers, truck drivers, nurses, zookeepers, garbage men, chefs…and on and on… because that’s what specialization necessarily requires.
I only wish the rigid naysayers who are so faithful to status quo comfort and thinking would likewise step back and be so humble as to allow scientists to contribute what we cannot — and then dutifully get off their butts, step to the plate and participate for the good of everyone rather than wait and see if, on an off-chance, their cynicism prevails.
Conclusion
But I’ve come to the conclusion that won’t happen. We’re divided and I have lost faith that sense and compassion can accomplish much of anything, at least any time in the foreseeable future. Simply, people love to hate. It’s the way of the Internet, of politics, of business, of entertainment.
The American public doesn’t even see the same America, the same planet, the same problems. We so often don’t even talk to each other in reasonably intelligent, restrained ways right now. (Watch John McCain and Sarah Palin and their hate-rally-goers in action, if you don’t believe me.)
So how can we fix what’s wrong with all of it?
Like Senator Joe Biden said of Sarah Palin’s refusal to acknowledge man’s activities have anything to do with her melting state of Alaska: How can we fix a problem we can’t even agree exists?
Justin, how do you even begin to calculate such theoritical downstream costs?
If I were playing the devil’s advocate, I would ask if you are really ready to utilize John McCain’s hatchet to cut out the dependent class within our society (even for the short term) to save the planet? Hurricane Katrina taught us that portions of our population have been dependent - in whole or in part - on government assistance since FDR’s New Deal. That’s three generations in some cases. How do these souls survive that short term without the benefit of wealth redistribution? How does making their lives more difficult benefit Gaia?
Now back to being myself. You my friend are starting to sound like a Constitutionalist. That is awesome! Personally, I think a small hatchet would be a good idea although applied differently than you probably imagine. I honestly believe that all of us would make adjustments to our lifestyles or seek employment that provides the means to maintain some assemblance of our current lifestyles if forced to do so. Many have forgotten that mankind is resilient and driven to succeed.
As stated earlier by Bobby, the problem is that Environmentalism is a religious ideology, and not science, and the real agenda is for those who follow that religion, is to subjugate those of us who do not believe, as well as destroy our society and culture.
I grew up with the Environmental movement, and remember joining the Cousteau Society in the 60’s. Jacques (unarguably the premier oceanologist of the time), told all us that the world’s oceans would be dead by 1990. Then we all were scared with the imminent threat of the new Ice Age in the 70’s, and on and on until the computer reached the point of which is could be programmed to “predict” climate trends, and has since been used as a club to further attack our society.
Designing a computer to give the desired results is child’s play, today, yet not a single computer model has given the data that we observe empirically. Climate alarmists want us to take the fact that these models are wrong, as proof that they are right, further clouding an already murky mishmash of myth.
How much data do we need to know that the Earth’s climate is changing? Well, any fool can see that it is. The truth of the matter is that it’s changing all the time, with the idea of steady state being refuted in all other scientific disciplines long ago.
I really don’t know anyone who doesn’t want a clean planet, but should we go back to living in caves so that people who see nature through the lens of a Disney movie can have their fantasy?
Not gonna happen folks, and until you decide what it is that you really want, then you’ll continue to be marginalized as the climate cools back down, and the whole AGW scare takes its place in a long line of b.s that the public got fired up about for a while.
In short, if you really care about being good stewards, then work to address real issues that you can make a difference in, and stop expecting the rest of us to get down on our knees and supplicate at the feet of your god/dess.
Bobby, you always make me chuckle. The problem I see with your logic is that you are thinking about costs only in economic/financial terms. Yes, a market economy of cheap goods is fine for those who are consumers and yes, it keeps some people in the market as consumers. But a cheap shirt made by a kid in an Indian sweatshop has serious human costs not reflected at all on the price tag. So I am concerned about the environmental costs but also much more humanitarian costs…costs we are already paying even if not with money.
And I am not even qualified to say how those more inclusive (accurate) prices can or should be calculated…but they need to be. Not just for Gaia but for humans, too.
@Charles - Finally, another reasonable skeptic has stepped up to the plate at sustainablog. Welcome to the jungle! I never joined the Cousteau Society, but I did have his ocean encyclopedia series on my shelf when I was a kid. It contained some of the most amazing undersea photographs, and was rather matter of fact scientifically without overdoing the “man is killing the ocean” theme.
As far as environmentalism’s goal to “destroy our society and culture”, I agree that the major environmental organizations see this as their end goal. They have too many ties to other socialist front organizations to interpret their cause any other way. However, I think that fact is shrouded from the rank-and-file greenies. Most lay-greenies just want to make the world a better place to live, but can not see that the work of these environmental societies and scientific research facilities have two primary goals. Those goals are to stay in business and to change the course of the culture. If the rank-and-file greenie would just review the last few decades of the cause, he would learn that with every environmental success there exists another scare just over the horizon. Get DDT banned, then scare the public about ALAR, and then take on the whole pesticide industry. Warn of an impending ice age, wait a few years and create the global warming scare, but have the term “climate change” in your back pocket in case neither fulfills the plan. They need every next scare simply to keep the money flowing and to move us another step closer to complete socialism?
I also find it interesting that the average greenie has no concept of the world in which the previous two or three generations lived. Anyone who was born prior to the mid-1940’s can tell you just how backwards “the good old days” really were. Forsaking modernity and turning the clock backwards to one-CFL households with detached outhouses is by no means the answer.
@Justin – The humanitarian costs are an issue that ultimately cries out for a system that parallels that of the United States. The ratification of the United States Constitution in 1783 set into motion the most incredible experiment in the history of mankind. For the first time, someone realized that human liberty originated with the Creator (not the government) and that a representative republic was the best way to protect the citizens from the government. It may not have created a utopia and the original intent of the founders may be lost forever, but it has allowed for changes that have arguably been for the better. We have outstanding labor laws for children and adults within our borders and policies that seek to minimize the importation of goods made in sweatshops. However, other sovereign nations have no requirement to adhere to either our laws or our policies, and sadly, goods from those nations still reach our shelves. Would our nation be within its right to force other sovereign nations to adopt our form of government or to enact laws to protect their children? Since it would likely cause a military conflict and the average green is also anti-war, I would suspect your answer to be, “No.” Should we suspend all trade with the sweatshop nations to starve them into submission? That also may be too cruel. Maybe you should start reading Roger Simmermaker’s work over at World Net Daily to find out where you can purchase goods made by Americans. Since you would be paying a premium price (something many greens support for things like gasoline) for well-made American made goods, the need for those other nations to be unscrupulous low-cost producers might be alleviated and allow them to abandon their sweatshop ways.
Well, there are a LOT of facts out there — political, as well as scientific. So when you realize that Al Gore, the High Priest of the global-warming faith, uses much more electricity, emits much more carbon, and covers much more ground than most of us…
If they’re so serious, why aren’t they listening to themselves? And if they themselves don’t do anything but talk about self-restraint, why should the rest of us do anything?
Two sets of facts, you see — one is that there seems to be global warming (though the last couple of winters have more undermined than underlined that). The other is that the leaders AND followers of global-warmingism are hypocrites and fanatics.
In short, while you may feel deniers are blind, shortsighted fools - I feel anybody who swallows Al Gore whole is an equally blind, shortsighted fool. And I guess a third fact is that the apostles of global-warmingism had a good hand in making me feel that way.
You are absolutely right about the severity of the polarization. I am a mild-mannered professional middle-aged man, not prone to extremes, yet I find myself quite caught up in the grip of it.
I don’t just dislike Bush and the Republicans. I loathe them. I despise them. I rue the fact that I have to share the same planet as them.
I look at people willing to vote for McCain despite the last 8 years of Republican rule, and I cannot for the life of me fathom how they could possibly think that way. Their mindset is as foreign to me as if they were aliens from another world, or an entirely different species.
I see very little places where their worldview can mesh with mine. What they want to happen I oppose, and those things I see necessary, they oppose. Where is the common ground? There is very little, I’m afraid, and in the coming culture wars, I don’t plan to surrender. The Republicans aren’t the only ones whose guns are protected by the Constitution. If - no, WHEN - the fighting starts, whose side will YOU be on? The fate of life on Earth hangs in the balance. We either lose it to the forces of anti-life and right-wing extremism, or we save it for all future generation.
Decide, and then don’t be a wimp about it.