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About ArmaVirumque ( AHR-mah wih-ROOM-kweh) In the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil sang of "arms and a man" (Arma virumque cano). Month in and month out, The New Criterion expounds with great clarity and wit on the art, culture, and political controversies of our times. With postings of reviews, essays, links, recs, and news, Armavirumque seeks to continue this mission in accordance with the timetable of the digital age. Recent posts
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Apr 03, 2007 11:50 PM by Stefan Beck
How is the global warming “debate” like the Spanish Inquisition? William F. Buckley Jr. has a terrific column here about Gorequemada and his minions:
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?
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