Cleaning up our act

By Cylinsier

Global Warming is the worst thing to happen to the environmental movement. Ever. There, I said it. Some day some number of years ago now, some scientist found evidence that suggested our way of life was going to destroy the climate within 50 or 100 or whatever number of years, and ever since then, its been all down hill. See, what started off as a single battleground for environmentalists has become the only battleground they've been fighting on ever since. This is because anti-environmentalists latched on to this idea, found some scientists of their own who had evidence that suggested global warming was a farce, and then never let the movement go on to other arguments. And now environmentalists and anti-environmentalists are stuck in a merry-go-round clusterfuck and both sides are so bent on convincing everyone that their opinion of the environment is right that they've completely forgotten about everything else.

Is Global Warming real? I don't know and, frankly, I don't care. If its not real, then that means nothing. If its real, then that also means nothing. Whether or not its going to happen, I'll be dead before it does. But that's not the point. Anti-environmentalists aren't going to let this one go because the have the green crowd wrapped up in it and therefore distracted from other things. The longer they can keep their attention focused on an argument they can at least stalemate, the longer they can delay getting into arguments they can't win. So I'm here speaking to all environmentalists: let it go. Time to move on. There are easier battles to be fought and won in this war and they are frankly more important. Whether or not the Earth goes to shit in 100 years is unimportant because its going to shit right now.

There are plenty of reasons to be pro-environment, or green, besides Global Warming. First, there are the immediate health effects, and by immediate I mean happening RIGHT NOW. Not happening right now but we'll see it in 100 years right now, but happening right now oh my fucking god my child is coughing up blood happening right now. Pollution, especially in cities, has been linked to rising rates of illnesses like asthma and dropping IQs. There aren't any scientists with and studies refuting these results like there are with Global Warming. There's just data, and that data says pollution may or may not be melting the ice caps, but it is destroying living children. There are people that will tell you pollution is lower now than it was forty years ago when these types of studies weren't coming up with these results and then they'll come up with some other excuse to explain it away, but they don't have evidence on their side. Even if pollution is better now, its still not good enough. And these types of studies weren't being done back then. There's a difference between these problems not existing forty years ago and us just not knowing how to find them.

There's also the issue, crossing over into the field of energy, of being enslaved to a substance that isn't easy to get or readily available to us in the amounts that we consume on a yearly basis. Our economy is tied to the providers of oil at a level that doesn't really make sense. To be so dependent on foreign products is unhealthy in a totally different way. The only half-assed solution proposed is to tear up our natural habitats looking for supplies that may or may not be their in our own borders but that even the most optimistic supporters admit isn't enough to really help. Its time to replace this drug that America is dependent on with something readily available and clean. And that doesn't mean something that sits in a barrel in a cave waiting to kill anything that touches it either. Something legitimately clean and renewable.

Which brings up another issue, and that is supply. Even if you don't buy into the first two arguments, there is no one claiming that oil and coal will last forever. The debate rages on about how long it will last, but not a single person in their right mind thinks we aren't going to run out eventually. Why wait until an energy crisis hits to switch to something better? I say do it on our own terms.

Look, if you don't want to believe in Global Warming, that's fine. But don't be so stupid as to think that the issue ends there, that there's nothing else to talk about. Global Warming may be false, but there are other real problems to address. So yeah, if you think Global Warming is a farce, I don't blame you. But if you think its a farce and use that as a justification to drive your Hummer all around town and you want to drill our oceans to support your irresponsible behavior, you need to consider some of the other facts that are right in front of your face. If the anti-environmentalists are right and we do it the environmentalists' way, then we wasted some time and money to grow a few more flowers and no one is the wiser. If the environmentalists are right and we do it the anti-environmentalists' way, we all die slow painful deaths. Think about it. What's the reward to taking the anti-environmental risk? What's the risk to shooting for the environmental award? Sphere: Related Content