Climate Change Bill Recognizes Technology's Downside
By Leigh Pomeroy
A number of folks have expressed doubts about the practicability of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act recently passed recently by the U.S. House of Representatives.
I too have serious doubts, but from a different point of view.
They opine it is based on bad science and will cost too much. I say it is too weak, too full of compromise and too full of sellouts to the vested economic interests that have created the need for the legislation.
I'm not going to lambaste the coal, oil and car industries, or industrialized farming. For decades they have supplied us with a steadily improving quality of life.
But it's only been within the last few decades that we have begun to realize the hidden costs of industrialization and reliance on fossil fuels. One of these costs is the effect that burning carbon has brought to the ecosystem of our planet — a change that the overwhelming majority of scientists say is already causing significant impacts on its biological balance.
The history of humankind is also a history of scientific discovery and technological development. Yet the good brought by science and technology has an "evil twin" — a downside that often isn't apparent for decades.
When humans first learned they could create fire, they also quickly learned that fire could get out of control with devastating effect.
When the first civilizations in Mesopotamia realized they could increase crop yields with irrigation, little did they know that irrigation would eventually lead to the salinization of their lands and the ultimate destruction of their society.
When the Indians of Chaco Canyon in America's southwest took all the timber from the surrounding tablelands, little did they know that without a nearby forest their society became vulnerable to drought, which caused their society to collapse.
The excitement of developing nuclear fission brought great scientific minds together in Los Alamos in the 1940s, but the horrible destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and later nuclear accidents at Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl have caused many to wonder if we can really control this Frankenstein's monster.
There is an inherent cost to technology that isn't always built into accounting balance sheets. The short-term profits are there, but the long-term costs are often pushed off for future generations to deal with.
It is important to listen to those who doubt climate change and to those who claim that addressing it will be prohibitively expensive. But it is more important to realize the fact that an overwhelming majority of scientists, researchers, economists and security policy analysts view climate change as a consequential threat to civilization as we know it.
Doing something about climate change now, even if far from perfect, is better than doing nothing. Unless, of course, we want to end up like the Mesopotamians or the Indians of Chaco Canyon.
A number of folks have expressed doubts about the practicability of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act recently passed recently by the U.S. House of Representatives.
I too have serious doubts, but from a different point of view.
They opine it is based on bad science and will cost too much. I say it is too weak, too full of compromise and too full of sellouts to the vested economic interests that have created the need for the legislation.
I'm not going to lambaste the coal, oil and car industries, or industrialized farming. For decades they have supplied us with a steadily improving quality of life.
But it's only been within the last few decades that we have begun to realize the hidden costs of industrialization and reliance on fossil fuels. One of these costs is the effect that burning carbon has brought to the ecosystem of our planet — a change that the overwhelming majority of scientists say is already causing significant impacts on its biological balance.
The history of humankind is also a history of scientific discovery and technological development. Yet the good brought by science and technology has an "evil twin" — a downside that often isn't apparent for decades.
When humans first learned they could create fire, they also quickly learned that fire could get out of control with devastating effect.
When the first civilizations in Mesopotamia realized they could increase crop yields with irrigation, little did they know that irrigation would eventually lead to the salinization of their lands and the ultimate destruction of their society.
When the Indians of Chaco Canyon in America's southwest took all the timber from the surrounding tablelands, little did they know that without a nearby forest their society became vulnerable to drought, which caused their society to collapse.
The excitement of developing nuclear fission brought great scientific minds together in Los Alamos in the 1940s, but the horrible destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and later nuclear accidents at Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl have caused many to wonder if we can really control this Frankenstein's monster.
There is an inherent cost to technology that isn't always built into accounting balance sheets. The short-term profits are there, but the long-term costs are often pushed off for future generations to deal with.
It is important to listen to those who doubt climate change and to those who claim that addressing it will be prohibitively expensive. But it is more important to realize the fact that an overwhelming majority of scientists, researchers, economists and security policy analysts view climate change as a consequential threat to civilization as we know it.
Doing something about climate change now, even if far from perfect, is better than doing nothing. Unless, of course, we want to end up like the Mesopotamians or the Indians of Chaco Canyon.
Powered by Blogger
1 Comments:
This just doesn't make any sense.
Are we talking about global warming or climate change? The left can't even now agree on what the definition of the problem is and yet we are going to strap every American family with thousands of dollars in increased energy costs? 30 years ago, it was 'global cooling', 10 years ago it was 'global warming', today it's 'climate change'. I cannot take any opinion seriously that argues that we need to 'fight climate change' as if it should be 70 degrees year round everywhere. Or, does the left know what the optimal global temperature should be if not 70 - 60? 48? 96? 18?
Throwing money at a problem that cannot be controlled or predicted such as 'climate change' is like throwing money at a global shield to protect the earth from the next cataclysmic asteroid strike or passing a bill to flip-flop Earth and Mars. Fighting global warming - I mean fighting climate change - is just as ridiculous.
What if, as I have argued for years (as an educated and trained physicist), the sun is the primary driver of the climate of the earth, not human activity? The evidence is overwhelming that the last two years of climate change are the direct result of the unpredicable lull in the energy output of the sun. To be sure, August 2008 was the first calendar month since 1913 to have zero sunspots and the lack of sunspots lasted for 42 days in the early September 2008. Since September 2008, the Earth has seen record-shattering cold over the entire plante. How can we possibly legislate for something we simply cannot control or predict?
The arguements about Mesopotamia irrigation and Chaco Canyon indians, etc...are laughable non-sequitirs. Humanity has come light years in its knowledge of sustainability since those bad old days and learned from those mistakes. I am sure the Babylonians and Chacons learned valuable lessons as well.
Face it, global warming - I mean climate change - it about economics. It is the unified field theory of the left to finally wedge a way to implement their long-standing desire of forced equality for all. The left will use global warming - darn it, I mean climate change - to implement their grand vision of equality of outcome for all. Glob...sigh...I mean climate change...has NOTHING to do with science and everything to do with government control of the most fundamental aspects of the lives of every human being.
Post a Comment
<< Home