Global Smoking

My natural tendency is to doubt popular analysis of public issues. The popular misconceptions about “population explosion”, abortion “rights”, two-party “democracy”, etc., etc., shows the public is easily misled by whoever owns the media. So when the popular media chants together about the dangers of global warming I am on my guard. I listen very carefully to any voice raised in disagreement. My caution is re-enforced when proponents of the idea of human activity increasing global average temperature engage in alarmist rhetoric. Heidi Cullen of the Weather Channel originally seemed to suggest that anyone who disagreed with the above idea should have their credentials revoked. Later she said that she would listen to others – once – and then move on. A recent episode of her show was promoted with the blurb that the Florida Everglades were “on the brink of extinction”. The phrase “on the brink” in a promo does not imply that forty or fifty years from now the Everglades will vanish, it seems to warn of their disappearance in four or five years. The Everglades, just like the Mississippi delta, have been severely damaged by mistaken water management. They are not going to disappear tomorrow if corrective action is taken.

Yet despite my misgivings I sense the issue of global warming is historically comparable to the issue of tobacco smoking. If you ceaselessly pump toxic smoke into your lungs and bloodstream you can expect negative consequences. If we ceaselessly pump pollutants and greenhouse gases you can expect negative consequences. Those who oppose this general concept of cleaning the environment remind me of those scientists and businessmen who downplayed the dangers of smoking to health. Doing things to make our energy production and consumption less damaging to the environment is the same as quitting smoking.