Global warming is a moral issue.
Humanity is in the process of effecting a change in the world’s climate, that even exceeds the natural cycles that in the past have produced ice ages. The impact on the life of this planet will be monumental and it is already being felt.
Thousands of people have already become climate change refugees from Wellington, NZ to New Orleans, USA. As the ice continues to melt, and the seas continue to rise, the UN believes this will run to 50 million people by 2010 and some scientists predict this to rise to 150 million. For those fortunate enough not to be forced from their homes, they will still be subject to more intense weather patterns, from stronger storms more often, to more severe droughts more frequently. Global warming is a moral issue.
The impact on other species in unprecedented - from caterpillars with scientific names we will never learn to polar bears drowning in the arctic because the ice has melted. We are killing off other animals 1000 times faster than nature’s average. Global warming is a moral issue.
Plants are not immune to these changes either. This global warming is caused by carbon in the form of carbon dioxide trapping the sun’s heat under the atmosphere like the glass windows of a car on a summer’s day. Almost 30% of all the Co2 that goes up into the atmosphere each year comes from forest burning. Global warming is a moral issue.
Even the rocks and oceans are crying out. As the earth heats, evaporation increases, not just from the oceans, but from the land as well. The soil is getting drier. The world’s permafrost is melting. The world’s glaciers are melting. The world’s ice caps are melting. Global warming is a moral issue.
Yet “humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problems.” (Pacia and Socolow: 2004)
Only two of the world’s developed nations have not joined the rest in ratifying the Kyoto protocol on reducing carbon emissions. Australia is one of them. The USA is the other.
Global warming is a moral issue. It is time for us to do something about it.
(Can you tell I saw An Inconvenient Truth today?)
February 17th, 2007 at 12:12 am
the same 60 SCIENTISTS say this to the Canadian government
… “Climate change is real” is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural “noise.” The new Canadian government’s commitment to reducing air, land and water pollution is commendable, but allocating funds to “stopping climate change” would be irrational. We need to continue intensive research into the real causes of climate change and help our most vulnerable citizens adapt to whatever nature throws at us next.
Key worD from line 1 according to scientists - MEANINGLESS PHRASE
and ALLOCATING FUNDS TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE AS IRRATIONAL.
February 17th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Remember the tale of CHICKEN LITTLE _
Basic plot
There are many versions of the story, but the basic premise is that a chicken called Chicken Licken (or Chicken Little) eats lunch one day, and believes the sky is falling down because an acorn falls on her head. She decides to tell the King, and on her journey meets other animals who join her in the quest. In most retellings, the other animals have similarly rhyming names. Finally, they come across Foxy Loxy, a fox who offers Chicken Licken and her friends his help.
After this point, there are many endings. In the most famous one, Foxy Loxy eats Chicken Licken’s friends, but the last one, usually Cocky Lockey, survives enough to warn Chicken Licken and she escapes. Other endings include Foxy eating them all; the characters being saved by a squirrel or an owl and getting to speak to the King; the characters being saved by the King’s hunting dogs; even one version in which the sky actually falls and kills Foxy Loxy.
Depending on the version, the moral changes. In the “happy ending” version, the moral is not to be a “Chicken Licken” and have courage. In other versions the moral is usually interpreted to mean “do not believe everything you are told”. In the latter case, it could well be a cautionary political tale: Chicken Licken jumps to a conclusion and whips the populace into mass hysteria, which the unscrupulous fox uses to manipulate them for his own benefit.
February 17th, 2007 at 4:41 am
“Janet - why does the American right scare you? The left will do the same things, they just talk different about it.”
Their abuse of the English language for one thing. That should read:
“they talk differently about it”
and since when did “Y’all” become standard English?
And why the heck did you post a link to a French newspaper? do you really hate the English language?
But seriously, in answer to the actual question, I have to ask… do the left and right really do the same things?
Our country also has troops involved in the chaotic bloodbath in Iraq on the assurance by American “intelligence” that their was a real and imminent danger of attack from weapons of mass destruction from Saddam’s regime… I have serious doubts we’d be there at all under a Gore presidency… I think the whole unstable mess was driven by a Bush / Cheney agenda… elected on the strength of the right.
The Iraq war has beautifully confirmed the Al Qaeda propaganda that the West is out to overtake the Muslim world by force and taking up arms in holy war is the only solution. Nice work.
Now as to your claim there’s no such thing as global warming… did you actually bother to read the New Scientist link?
The very nature of science means that people are constantly testing hypotheses and double checking the research of others… of the thousands of scientists working on this issue some will find compelling evidence in one direction and some in another because climate change is so complex… sometimes the minority view becomes the majority view over time because the evidence supports it. It’s hardly surprising you could find 60 scientists who will sign a letter urging caution and that Canada should put more resource into research (you’ve neglected to post all the parts of their letter stressing complexity and uncertainty!)
In the hands of journalists, politicians, and activists, you’re right to suspect an agenda… (I’m not so sure about senate papers by Senator James Inhofe)… but I think you underestimate the instinct of scientists to caution and to check everything… it’s a discipline based on experimentation and statistics and constantly testing new ideas. However… sometimes a majority consensus does start to develop on the strength of actual data… the New Scientist article articulates that growing consensus even in the midst of the expected doubts and disputes and dialogue.
If the doubters are right, good… if the majority scientific opinion is right, we’d better do something sooner rather than later. We’d be negligent to do nothing just because we don’t have certainty in my opinion.
February 17th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Janet - Y’all became standard Anglish ’bout 1865, I reckin’. That there is the year Ole Dixie Died. But’s that all suthern, not republican right wang. Heck Fahr- that there is more dem’crat talkin’ than right wang talkin’. Shoot, grand pappy would roll ovuh in his guh-rave if he’d thought that you-uns thought he’s a republican.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Je ne comrende pas.
Parlez-vous Francais?
February 17th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Ah Janet, so much controversy and no proof of this theory. However, one little verse of scripture always comes to mind.
Revelation 7:1-3
1 After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree.
2 Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea,
3 saying, “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”
~
Though we must steward and manage our resources, isn’t it then interesting that in spite of our efforts, in the final analysis there will be suffering?
There in still no excuse for letting mismanagement go unhindered, but in the end, there is nothing that will prevent it.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
“so much controversy and no proof of this theory.”
This is the problem with science… people think it can provide watertight “proof” about incredibly complex phenomena… what it is best at doing is presenting probabilities…
I notice Nick Minchin today was carrying on about how we shouldn’t “over react” to the threat of global warming because it hasn’t been “proved” at it may damage growth to our economy.
Proof is such a tricky thing… some would still be shouting: “This is possibly simply part of a natural weather cycle” as the water lapped around their feet.
The fact is that the majority of scientists conducting research in this area believe man-made causes are contributing to a significant rise in global temperatures and the result may be catastrophic… especially to people in low-lying areas.
We take precautions based on probabilities all the time in life… insurance, locking your house, embarking on a degree… etc. etc. The stakes are really high if the majority scientific view is right… high enough that some sacrifice is called for IMO.
February 18th, 2007 at 2:26 am
I agree. Even if one disagrees that the data is indicating global warming, as a good number do, there is no reason to continue to pollute.
Even if there is no global warming, it makes no sense to ignore the need to change our behavior. The fact is that we are harming the environment and health by putting chemicals in our food, air and water.
Personally, I believe there are other factors that could cause global warming other than man made. It’s very likely we may be in a warming cycle. We could be experiencing a global response to earth rotation changes. However, why pollute the air and water when it’s in our interest to develop clean alternatives?
In any case we are in for a wild ride on this orbiting ball we call earth.
February 18th, 2007 at 3:54 am
tulsapro - As we rednecks neo-cons would say…YUP!
February 19th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
There’s one simple scientific fact in this that noone’s actually arguing about.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
The levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have more than doubled since the start of the industrial revolution.
It would not be too surprising if this caused the atmosphere to become warmer.
The argument is really over the extent to which a complex system is able to buffer itself against change… which it can do to some extent (eg the oceans can dissolve higher levels of CO2… although this does effect their pH)… how much it is able to do so is up for dispute.
When in doubt, preserve homeostasis… especially when there’s a lot at stake.
February 19th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Warning I am really tired and it is possible that none of the following makes any sense.
I think that the focus on global warming while worthy actually deflects scrutiny of our consumerist habits. Or should I say the drive in the macro economic arena for producivity to always be upwards. If as predicted global population growth reaches a peak around 2070 somewhere in the following decades consumption may actually start to decline. This kinda puts a spanner in the works of ever increasing GDP. A world crisis whatever it may be Tsunami, war, hurricane increases GDP. So focusing on a crisis of Global warming increases National GDP. Am I a cynical conspiracy theorist. Heck No.
I just think that what Jack-of-it described about the Egyptian pharohs in Shall we sign could be at play here. May I join with Pilate and ask “What is truth”? About Global warming? I don’t know. Just take pause and keep an open mind. Can I say I am stating this from a view that I am actually paid money to educate people about the environment.
February 20th, 2007 at 5:23 am
[…] only targets threatened by the changing climate. Global warming is very much a human rights issue. This post at Signposts explains just why global warming is a moral issue (ht: […]
February 20th, 2007 at 6:34 am
Mmmm….
Nick Minchin (finance minister) thinks we should be cautious about global warming because it hasn’t been “proved”, and cutting back on greenhouse emissions will damage Australia’s economic growth. No… I don’t think it’s simply a beat up to generate economic growth.
Having said that… there is a niche market that stand to benefit from alleged global warming… anyone associated with “green energy” or energy efficient products, those who get into the “carbon trading” market… maybe even environment educators!!!!
Call me simple… but I think the EXPECTED result of doubling the levels of a significant greenhouse gas would be global warming… even taking into account the complexities of the atmosphere, local variations, the capacity of the oceans to absorb CO2 and other buffering mechanisms etc. To use a double negative… you would not expect this to have NO effect on global temperatures.
As stated earlier… I think the New Scientist review is a pretty fair assessment of the issue… science does not rest on “proof” but probabilities… some scientists urge caution and present evidence against global warming, but the weight of the research points in the other direction… the atmosphere really is getting hotter, which makes the air more humid, then water vapour (also a greenhouse gas) makes the atmosphere hotter… etc. etc.
“deflects scrutiny of our consumerist habits”….
Might it not also put the SPOTLIGHT on our consumerist habits… if our lifestyle is environmentally unsustainable, we need to reign it in for the sake of future generations, like it or not.
February 22nd, 2007 at 8:12 am
[…] caring for those who are affected by disasters and being good stewards of all creation are moral issues. Thankfully, global warming is also a solvable […]