How is the global warming “debate” like the Spanish Inquisition? William F. Buckley Jr. has a terrific column here about Gorequemada and his minions:
Critics are correct in insisting that human enterprises have an effect on climate. What they cannot at this point do is specify exactly how great the damage is, nor how much relief would be effected by specific acts of natural propitiation.
The whole business is eerily religious in feel. Back in the 15th century, the question was: Do you believe in Christ? It was required in Spain by the Inquisition that the answer should be affirmative, leaving to one side subsidiary specifications.
It is required today to believe that carbon-dioxide emissions threaten the basic ecological balance. The assumption then is that inasmuch as a large proportion of the damage is man-made, man-made solutions are necessary. But it is easy to see, right away, that there is a problem in devising appropriate solutions, and in allocating responsibility for them.
How did it come to this? I confess (hanging my head in shame) to finding the whole matter soporifically dull even if the most fearsome prognostications are true. This has nothing to do with politics and even less, as will surprise no one, with good sense. It’s this: How many times have you heard some wag say that he doesn’t care about global warming because he’ll be dead long before it becomes a real problem? The mortified response, inevitably, is, Think of the children. The children are our future.
The what are our future? The children are our what? It’s the children, after all—and not the tropical storms named for them—who grow bigger and louder and more turbulent with each passing year. (And if we think in terms of centuries and millennia, as we must do in the case of climate change, the prospects for improvement become bleaker still.) To whom do we hope to leave this hypothetical Eden of climatic equilibrium? Probably to the birds, the squirrels, and the cephalopods, because the children of today’s warzones, from Baghdad to Clichy-sous-Bois, aren’t going to be in any shape to take advantage of it.
All this, I think, explains the general passion for the global warming issue. Since it isn’t expected to become a real problem in our lifetime, it won’t require a real solution in our lifetime. No matter what one does to battle it, he never need worry about looking inadequate or being proven wrong. The same can’t be said of those who try to address the evil that men do to one another. So if you’re going to save mankind, why not play it safe?
add a comment