Thursday, October 30th 2008

By martin capdevila

     Global Warming is not a fact, it is a fad, a religion of sorts, if you will, because our intellectual society has grown tired of religion and is in need of something else to believe in. We chose our planet. It’s really not a bad idea, considering the fact that we live and breathe our own filth, and wanting the air to be cleaner is a legitimate desire. However, when we dismiss those who don’t agree with us because of such sacrilege we are again discriminating and censoring voices that should be heard. Why?

     Think about how many jobs depend on Global Warming being a reality. It has been called the “defining moral and political cause of our age” but concerts like Live Earth invite people en masse to a stadium where energy is pumped out in decibels and garbage is strewn about—including those “forever-in-a-landfill” waterbottles. It actually takes about 450 years for them to decompose by the way. If you believe Global Warming is the biggest threat to our world, you are sadly mistaken. The last 8 years have seen an explosion in environmental literature, advocacy groups and an overall worldwide cult following behind grossly skewed and exaggerated facts that add up to nothing more than an ideology, or religion. There is little more factual correlation to reality in Global Warming theory than there is in the Bible or the Qur’an. Any outspoken opposition to these beliefs are taken personally and offensively, much like in religion. However, the intent and meaning behind the idea is much the same as any faith system—to inspire moral action. Before that, some facts.

     First and foremost, the general argument says the relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature is such that the latter rises as a result of higher CO2. That is absolutely wrong. Historically, and if you look closely at the graph in An Inconvenient Truth, the relationship is the exact inverse—and there is about an 800 year delay in the effects of temperature on carbon dioxide levels. More importantly carbon dioxide is only 0.038-0.054% of the Earth’s atmosphere, and our supposed contribution is much less. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is supposedly the top 2500 scientists in the world whose reports support the theory of Global Warming. The problem: the group is not actually all scientists. Many scientists who were at one time part of this panel were removed from the 2500-strong ‘shortlist’ if they disagreed with the IPCC reports—and thus the existence of Global Warming. Censorship and the repression of real facts and alternative ideas about the true nature of our climate is the reason the Green movement has become a worldwide phenomenon. The belief is not based on facts.

     As mentioned, on a fundamental level the reason for our interest in the environment is heartfelt and surprisingly optimistic of the nature of collective human action, yet it reeks with pessimism about the nature of humans themselves! The Global Warming ideology seems to suggest that humans are the reason our world is in disarray and that we don’t deserve our planet because of how we treat it. At the same time, we are the only ones who are able to—and must—effect change. If you don’t know what a contradiction is, you’ve just found the Mother (Earth) of them all. 

     The fact that humans should be beneath nature is absolutely appalling and absurd. We should not, by any means put ourselves above any animal or planet that can without warning or mercy, end 1 or 100, 000 human lives. On the other hand, the reason dinosaurs lived for millions of years had somewhat of a correlation to their monopolization of the planet and their required resources. Yes: we have the ability to reason and are more intelligent, but we are on a basic level as much a part of nature as other animals.

     Alan Weisman spoke on campus last year about his book The World Without Us in which he depicts our modern world with humans suddenly and completely removed from it. Even from a man who had spent years travelling and researching for a book that was initially supposed to be about—you guessed it—our modern crisis, he proclaimed his optimism about the Earth’s resiliency. The problem then, is that as much as we seem to purport that our struggle against the human addiction to Earth-killing machines is a righteous one, there is not one ounce of altruism in it! Why?

     Let’s try our best to grasp Global Conforming together, shall we? The ultimate argument in support of reifying such absent-minded foolishness is wholly contingent on the fact that human beings have more of a substantial effect on our environment than: ocean currents and temperatures, weather patterns, air streams, the Earth’s axial tilt, its orbital changes and in a close finish—the sun. The sun is not a stagnant and stoic space-heater. It is the most violent and unrelenting antithesis of life. Ironically, it the only reason for life and the sole provider of an environment even worth protecting. Weisman, an avid environmentalist, spoke about his book and how, through his travels, he realized that the Earth has been through much more than our insignificant environmental blunders. 

     About 250 million years ago, our planet was struck by an asteroid that devastated our environment and decimated just over 90% of all life on the planet. The quintessential nature of our planet is spoken to by this simple fact—the environment has survived much more horrifying things than human beings. Global Warming activists cannot accept that we simply do not wield enough ecological influence to alter our planet’s entire ecosystem. They want it done and now. Only the aforementioned forces have this ability. Drastic differences in the Earth’s climate are the result of significantly small changes in the axis and rotation of the planet over thousands of years. Are we to believe that the concept of Global Warming has elevated the influence of mankind over that of the sun? Process that for a minute.

      (On a side note, Global Warming disciples should take not that in the past year or so, the swan-song for our planet has changed key. It is not longer “Global Warming” but “climate change.”) I wonder if the term “global cooling” means anything to anyone. About thirty to forty years ago, one large environmental concern was the cooling of our planet. What happened? All the proponents of our ecological trend suggest that temperatures have been rising over the last hundred years.

  While it is our duty to protect the remaining jewels of Earth that we have not selfishly expunged for fuel, our environmental understanding through the lens of Global Warming needs a drastic overhaul. We should protect what we have left, but not because of lies, because it is the only thing we humans have to call home—or that is habitable, for that matter. Inevitably, though, we are going to get hit by an asteroid. It has happened. It will happen again; it is merely a question of when. If we are that worried about the Earth and it’s ecosystem, we need to find a way to prevent this catastrophe.

     I wrote last time about student stubbornness to take heed when new ideas are put forth, and this is no different. If two students who go to McMaster are identical in their environmental awareness, but one believes in man-made Global Warming and the other doesn’t, what is the threat to our planet then? What if this were true on a global scale? Those who don’t believe should not be condemned. At the end of the day, actions will always speak louder than inconsistent facts and the heretics shall be heard from high atop the eco-friendly pulpits.