The argument over global climate change has been very much a political one but it should not be. It is happening or it is not and the disrespecting of scientists, which I have been writing about, is part of what makes the right able to turn it into an issue of economics which means once again profit for somebody and no concerns greater than that.
When we discussed education earlier, one of the commenters mentioned that while the United States might be educating less scientists, we are educating more lawyers than anywhere else. That person could have added financial managers. We evidently have decided, as a people, that the profit is in moving money around instead of responsible manufacturing. This viewpoint puts aside anything that doesn't profit someone and puts it forth as all a culture needs. Is there something else coming to make that all moot?
When a rightie reads a headline like that, they too often dismiss it without looking at the details. They go to Fox news and get reassured by something that doesn't relate to the real questions like there were some emails exchanged that sounded like global warming was being hyped. What a relief, they say and ignore the possibility that some who hyped it did so out of concern for what was coming and a need to get people awake and that those who did that were few. They don't care because they heard what they wanted from someone who was reassuring them-- no problem.
If they live above a certain elevation, maybe it won't matter to them or then again when other people are displaced, maybe it will. Will it matter when weather patterns change and we end up with increasing violent storms or rain where it wasn't and not where it was?
If the warming leads to wind and ocean current changes, more people might realize that they live on this earth at its pleasure not at their own. That they must cooperate with it, not force it to fit their agenda.
Science that is oriented toward profits and is controlled is okay. Science that says something they don't want to hear-- not so much.
Something that many don't want to hear is global climate change, sometimes called global warming but that became too confusing to those who don't understand that global warming would impact winds, ocean currents, and weather which might lead to ice ages one place and droughts another.
With a look at the prehistory of this world, it's easy to see these changes impacting other species in the past. Are we prepared for another such time? If not, why not? It is possible that we can't really prepare for some events, but are we doing all we can to not be part of the problem?
You know, mankind's history on this earth is full of instances of completely wiping out other species, cutting down forests to create deserts, abusing the soil to the point it no longer could grow food. Some of that was in times we were more ignorant of consequences. What is our excuse today?
When we as a culture have downgraded the importance of education, ridiculed the intelligentsia, seen science as a threat to faith, where does that take us? Yes, it is possible, looking at earth's geologic and fossil record, that change might come no matter what we have done; but are we hastening it? Are we preparing for it?
I think the answers to those questions have a global perspective but also a personal one. What are we ourselves doing to be ready in case the relatively peaceful time most of us have known is going to come to an end during our lifetime?
(View from Yaquina Head looking south-- December 2010)
12 comments:
Rain I am a Righty and I think global warming is occurring. And I didn't come to that conclusion because of Fox News. My respect for the news media is low in general. As for the intelligentsia, I make my own decisions based on my knowledge. I have a good education, but thankfully I have good common sense too. I respect the common man more than some academician up at Harvard or out in Berkeley.
Thank you!!!! You always ask the right questions.
It's always about money. I remember when my brother came back from the Gulf War and I commented that the Bush the first didn't finish the job, he said, "It was about oil and money."
Money and greed seem to have superceded common sense and common decency and I've no idea how we can overcome it and concentrate on what's really important.
I wish our leaders would wake up to that we have to save this poor old planet but their greed and lust for power has blinded them.
well I respect some academicians more than some common men *s* Basically having an education or not having one doesn't make someone a good person but it does give them more knowledge which can be used wisely if they so desire. I really respect education but it takes more than that to make people honorable.
"We evidently have decided, as a people, that the profit is in moving money around instead of responsible manufacturing. This viewpoint puts aside anything that doesn't profit someone and puts it forth as all a culture needs. Is there something else coming to make that all moot?" Absolutely spot on! As to the last question there is an answer that cannot be accepted yet, but is most likely true: We are entering into a transition from Jeffersonian Democracy into an a republic oligarchy. Back to the 18th century, but with high tec gizmos.
My father-in-law, retired professor from OSU does not accept the hypothesis of "Anthropomorphic" Climate change. I blogged about his denial which is based on science he acquired back in the 1970's. Unfortunately his brain is stuck there as his body continues to move on in age.
If humans were able to rationally and adequately evaluate risk and asses consequences over time, nobody would ever take up smoking. Hindsight is usually 20/20.
Your link is well worth reading, Robert, for anyone considering this issue of what global warming might lead to in terms of ice ages. I definitely had the feeling that some areas would become ice bound while others something else. The ice came quite a ways down into America in the last ice age (I think) which makes you wonder where those people go or if it will become habitable. Europe had a deep cooling period in recorded history and it had a big impact on populations in terms of deaths and diseases. Whatever is going to happen, I mostly object to taking economics into consideration. It should be based on what's likely to happen and how do we protect the most people in the event it does happen.
A rich man can be honorable as can a poor man and both types can be scoundrels. What does that tell us ? It tells us that economic status does not drtermine the content of one's character. I know academicians who are good people, but also some who are bad people. C'est la vie. Like you say, the rub is that one has to use knowledge wisely. My daughter teaches history at Cambridge and has a first rate education. (Vanderbilt graduate) I told her to not teach revisionist history, as a fair share do now, but what really occurred. Academicians. like politicians, need to be observed and held to account , because what they teach influences a lot of fertile minds.
Revisionist history has always been with us. Have you looked at textbooks from earlier times, like when our parents would have been taught from them? It's just the nature of humans and we might be less prone to it today than back then as there are more alternative sources to go to. The problem is the winners write the history and it takes a long time to get to a place that people are willing to look at the whole picture.
Humans like to see themselves as noble and any suggestion they are not, in pretty much any culture, is derided-- or worse. It's as bad to pretend the US has always been noble as to say it's always been ignoble... But that said, humans are humans and a mix of the best and worst of animal natures with some uniquely thrown in that are just 'us'.
What irks me is how the right wing wants to paint this country as always having had higher purposes, not admitting we have had our own way of sucking resources out of other countries. Oh we didn't do what the English did with putting our own government in place there-- if you don't count all the puppets we did help install right up to today; but our corporations went, taking those resources one way or another.... and it's not unique to what whites do. Any race, given the chance seems to stomp on others one way or another as part of a certain segment of humans.
Teaching history, short of dates, will always have some revisionist tendencies... The way you were taught as a young person isn't anymore sacrosanct that what a historian might teach today.
No the United States is far from perfect, but I'll take it compared to the rest of the world. So what you say goes on is "human nature" Rain ? How will that fly with the lefties ?
You think lefties see human nature as perfect? *s* I think the righties, who blame everything on Satan might have more trouble with it.
I must admit though after reading Diamond's book with incident after incident of humans wiping out species of animals or each other, it's hard to be optimistic on what the heck is going on with our species.
To add to it, last night we watched Mugabe and the White African, which I recommend to anybody who is interested in what is going on in Africa. This is about a white family who bought their farm after Zimbabwe was formed, bought it legally, and are being forced out by Mugabe's corrupt regime simply because they are white. Racial bigotry doesn't know boundaries. The family has tried to protect their land through the legal system but there is no legal system in a place like Zimbabwe. It's all what Mugabe wants or has been. I don't know if that can be changed but it's certainly not the only example :(
This morning the leader of my class at church came in incredibly upset by exactly what you posted. We had a discussion about what we were trying to do as individuals and families to steward the planet, but he was so upset that I think all of us (at least me) began to feel the collective guilt as I simply don't know what to do about all this.
Mugabe, Hitler, Stalin , Mao-they are all cut from the same cloth. Put Idi Amin Dada in there too. Some lefties say that a person "of color" cannot be a racist and that's a bald faced lie. I know more than a few Black racists.
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