Global warming is an emotional issue most of all

And it is a media and political issue. If it were a scientific issue as it has been until recently, then few would have heard much about it, though they should have, in my opinion. But that is another story.

Rather than rehash all the science and opinions and promotion thereof, one might consider how to think and consider future courses of action. For example in the how to think side of things, why do the drug makers’ products have to be reviewed by outside and hopefully independent humans while the global climate modelers get a free pass, as in they review their own work? This is classic conflict of interest stuff. And why do politicians set atmospheric goals that look a lot like when they were a kid, as that was the best we humans can do since they liked it as a kid. Personally, I would pick another period than when Al Gore was a kid in a D.C. and Tennessee. And the media coverage by individuals who have little subject matter expertise is starting to get embarrassing to many citizens. It is hard to determine who should be more embarrassed and shamed, the pundits who write for a living, or the reporters who generate stories for a living. Most of us assume they have families, and they all care about their and our family’s future, so most citizens do not assign evil intentions to their way of life. Rather most tune them out, or laugh at them quietly out of respect to basic human manners. Yet recently the humor left when the Governor of Kansas stopped a new coal fired electric power plant, and the Lieutenant Governor even later came to her defense. All this was over the impacts of CO2 on global warming. Fine, most small businesses have other alternatives as to where to relocate (as from California), or start up. Whatever, the effect will probably take decades to happen, and when the lights go out and the winter heat goes off, the Governor will probably be elsewhere. So will many fellow citizens who heeded the ruling.

“Global warming” is not a bad phrase. Neither is the “greenhouse effect”. For those interested in the subject, reading anything other than the media reports or accolades from Hollywood Academy Awards or Norwegian Nobel Peace Awards is a better alternative. For example, at the end of the last Ice Age, New York City was at least one half mile under the ice. Is that what we want to return to, or even try preserve. The benefits of global warming are seldom reported, as by Bjorn Lomborg. Those academic neophytes, playing God with complex systems, have a bad history of over confidence and underachievement, often called failure. Just look at 100 years of lack of performance at Yellowstone Park.

The scary part to many is that much of our future is beyond our control. That we may not be around forever, or life on earth even be around forever, is profoundly scary. Yet that is natural evolution, to most. To those who believe, and hope, that humans have much to do with all this, and can influence all this, I hope they are correct. For those who believe God made humans special in the universe, I also hope they are correct. But they both have to convince most of us. And the argument can never be some “chicken little the sky is falling argument”. Most citizens are invested in their families and their futures, and the latest version of well intentioned and probably idealistic young people and anarchists have no right, or expectation, to be able to take us down in their vision and path and poor education as to global warming; as in go along, as in the whole society and American culture is theirs just for showing up.