Year 2, Month 7, Day 24: Ditto, Ditto, Ditto…

A guy named Ken Midkiff writes a good piece on our likely future in the July 8 issue of the Columbia Tribune (MO):

There are, to be sure, a few skeptics and deniers — mostly those who rely on faux news for “information.” There was never any doubt that that more greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere would cause the planet to become warmer. But the skeptics and deniers have determined it is futile to argue that the planetary temperature is not rising — every measurement demonstrates that it is. The arguments now are about human responsibility and which areas will be affected and how.

As to the first argument, the global-warming skeptics and deniers are quite literally willing to gamble on everyone’s life. If human activities are responsible for raising the level of greenhouse gases and no contrary action is taken, the gamble fails. That is not a risk that should be taken.

At what level of certainty is a seat belt to be fastened? Even if we are just contributing to (not totally causing) global warming, we need to find non-polluting ways of doing things.

I didn’t even bother reading the comments; I just sent the following:

Ken Midkiff’s realistic assessment of the country’s next few decades is sure to demonstrate one of contemporary life’s few certainties: any published article dealing straightforwardly with the facts of climate change will attract vituperation from people who consider Rush Limbaugh a trustworthy source of information. As the scientific evidence piles up higher and higher, the climate denialists are going into overdrive. Their feverish reiterations of “hoax” and their derisive references to “algore” (Rush’s nickname for one of the few politicians to fully grasp the magnitude of the crisis) show their desperation. A sane society would properly relegate these hyperparanoid conspiracy theorists to the margins. Alas, in contemporary American culture, outright rejection of science is a virtual prerequisite for success in either politics or the media — which means that we can no longer expect our laws and opinions to bear any relationship to reality. It would be hilarious if our lives weren’t at stake.

Warren Senders