Climate Change and Copenhagen – The World is, Apparently, Ending.
November 16, 2009 · By Jonathan McLeod
In Politico‘s The Arena, they ask:
Climate: How big a deal is it that there will be no big deal at Copenhagen? Are you pleased or displeased about it?
Well, they didn’t ask me, but in all humility I thought it best that I supply an answer: Not much.
“The Environment” is an important, though often undefined, issue – much like “women’s issues”, “social justice” and “family values”. Nonetheless, these types of grand international summits never seem to be of much use. Politicians use them to grandstand and to pick on old grudges. They agree on action that they never intend to enact (or know will burden their successors) or initiatives that they were already planning to introduce – though now they can do so with an heir of self-righteousness.
Honest debates about “climate”, though possible, are rare. Dishonesty and ulterior motives abound, and few are willing to engage their adversaries in a constructive and collaborative endeavour. Are humans damaging the environment? Undeniably. Does that mean we must dismantle all tools of wealth creation, no matter how much it increases human suffering? Hardly. The trick lies somewhere in between. At what point do we optimize our well being? What is the balance between wealth creation (along with freedom) and environmental protection? I don’t claim to have an answer, but I’m willing to acknowledge the question.
Politico did ask our friend, Richard Albert. Richard has a different and less cynical, though not truly incompatible, take than I have:
As a Christian, President Obama has accepted the responsibility to orient himself toward four pillars of conduct: defend the weak, heal the sick, stare down evil, and care for our planet. So far, President Obama is batting three for four. Now he owes it to himself, to his faith, to his fellow Americans and to the citizens of the world to fight for Earth. Copenhagen will not be the answer. But the President can—and indeed must—use the occasion as a catalyst for a new round of negotiations next year.
So, the question now is, where do we start? I’m prepared for a number of comments to this post crying out against the infiltration of Marxist thought via the Climate Change agenda, as well as a number of prophets warning of the impending doom as the polar ice caps turn to boiling tar in three weeks if we don’t do something. As you can guess, I’m not particularly open to the arguments of the extremists on either end of this debate.
So, dear readers of ThePolitic, where do we start?
(By the way, for a reasoned debate about climate change, check out Jim Manzi and David W. Orr.)
Where we really should start is drop all this nonsense about CO2 driving climate and fix real verifiable problems like dumping gunk in our rivers, potable water for the planet, too much consumption of disposable goods . . . in a round about way that helps solve the original problem of the fact we are trashing the planet without having to figure out how much of the 0.7C human CO2 in the air is a direct cause for… something that to this day I’ve never found an answer for.
We start by simply acknowledging that climate change presents a problem that, unchecked, will drastically affect this planet’s landscape and its ability to support the current population. It is real, anthropomorphic, and we can do something about it without “dismantl[ing] all tools of wealth creation, no matter how much it increases human suffering’.
We can reasonably debate the severity and speed of the coming change, and the appropriate responses to address it. Ostriches don’t help, however, and should continue to be ignored by those in power.
Sorry, meant ‘anthropogenic’, not ‘anthropomorphic’. While climate change is caused by humans, it definitely doesn’t resemble us. :)
Earth’s climate remained static when it was an entirely frozen ball of ice, other than that, it keeps changing. And humans adapt.