Global warming (anthropogenic or otherwise) is a hard sell to anyone who’s freezing his butt off fighting the hardest winter he can remember. And though repackaging global warming as climate change is probably a wise move, it’s just human nature to let broader perspectives and scientific conjectures rest completely while coping with the immediacy of “what’s happening to me right now.” (If you haven’t seen Stephen Colbert’s recent comedy sketch about this, I highly recommend it. I particularly liked Colbert’s professor of peekaboo-ology.)
Climate change is almost a non-term here in Western Washington where the weather is so variable year to year, climate change seems almost normal. Unlike the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, we’ve just had our warmest winter on record. Last winter we had our taste of the ice age.
But in spite of recent controversies which expose some extremely-careless or just-plain-bad science, there’s some good science behind global warming, too. Weather extremes are integral to the theory, so discounting the whole idea because your butt’s cold today is definitely throwing the baby out with the bath water.
On the other hand, there’s some very smart people countering the theory and some very good science behind their counter claims. Ironically, the very reason we find global warming so hard to believe when our butts are cold mirrors the reason why global warming has rational skeptics. It really is difficult for us humans (including scientists) to stand far enough back from our tiny little lives to get accurate, objective perceptions. From a geological perspective, the global warming theory itself is just a report on what’s happening right now. Several decades of climate statistics do not necessarily make an arguable trend. Well, obviously it is arguable, but that’s not the same as provable.
But it’s the furor of this discourse that deserves applause. It means awareness of environmental degradation (whatever the cause) has whole-heartedly entered our public consciousness. A recent New York Times article pointed out that therapists are even seeing a trend in environmental issues as a significant cause for family discord. And as much I hate to see families in stress, the environmental dialog matters; and the things that matter most to us should be discussed (and sometimes argued about) in our homes. An integral environmental consciousness – public and private – represents true progress.
I have warmist leanings. There’s much more to the theory than whether you should be driving a Prius or a Hummer. But selling global warming as yet another variety of armageddonism is counterproductive and unnecessary. Extremes always create backlash. Most of the noise between warmists and their skeptics is not about whether humans are negatively impacting the environment, it’s about how, what’s the timeline and what’s the fix.
Anyone completely devoid of environmental awareness at this point is either under-educated, living in impoverished desperation, or choosing to remain intentionally blind. Lack of education and impoverished desperation are both forgivable, and illiteracy and poverty must be addressed as part a holistic environmental dialog. But intentional blindness, whether motivated by greed or just laziness, is no excuse at all.
But that’s another human foible, isn’t it – it often takes the noise of controversy to force our eyes open. It’s called awakening.
“When people generally are aware of a problem, it can be said to have entered the public consciousness. When people get on their hind legs and holler, the problem has not only entered the public consciousness — it has also become a part of the public conscience. At that point, things in our democracy begin to hum.”
- Hubert Humphrey
