Posted on 02/09/2007 4:55:49 PM PST by phatus maximus
On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb. OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
No, I do not think that if everyone lit just one little compact fluorescent light bulb, what a bright world this would be. Even the Prius in our driveway doesn't do a whole lot to reduce my carbon footprint, which is roughly the size of the Yeti lurking in the (melting) Himalayas.
But it was either buying a light bulb or pulling the covers over my head. And it was too early in the day to reach for that kind of comforter.
By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.
I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.
But light bulbs aside -- I now have three and counting -- I don't expect that this report will set off some vast political uprising. The sorry fact is that the rising world thermometer hasn't translated into political climate change in America.
The folks at the Pew Research Center clocking public attitudes show that global warming remains 20th on the annual list of 23 policy priorities. Below terrorism, of course, but also below tax cuts, crime, morality, and illegal immigration.
One reason is that while poles are melting and polar bears are swimming between ice floes, American politics has remained polarized. There are astonishing gaps between Republican science and Democratic science. Try these numbers: Only 23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe the warming is due to humans, while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it.
This great divide comes from the science-be-damned-and-debunked attitude of the Bush administration and its favorite media outlets. The day of the report, Big Oil Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma actually described it as "a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain." Speaking of corruption of science, the American Enterprise Institute, which has gotten $1.6 million over the years from Exxon Mobil, offered $10,000 last summer to scientists who would counter the IPCC report.
But there are psychological as well as political reasons why global warming remains in the cool basement of priorities. It may be, paradoxically, that framing this issue in catastrophic terms ends up paralyzing instead of motivating us. Remember the Time magazine cover story: "Be Worried. Be Very Worried." The essential environmental narrative is a hair-raising consciousness-raising: This is your Earth. This is your Earth on carbon emissions.
This works for some. But a lot of social science research tells us something else. As Ross Gelbspan, author of "The Heat is On," says, "when people are confronted with an overwhelming threat and don't see a solution, it makes them feel impotent. So they shrug it off or go into deliberate denial."
Michael Shellenberger, co author of "The Death of Environmentalism," adds, "The dominant narrative of global warming has been that we're responsible and have to make changes or we're all going to die. It's tailor-made to ensure inaction."
So how many scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
American University's Matthew Nisbet is among those who see the importance of expanding the story beyond scientists. He is charting the reframing of climate change into a moral and religious issue -- see the greening of the evangelicals -- and into a corruption-of-science issue -- see big oil -- and an economic issue -- see the newer, greener technologies .
In addition, maybe we can turn denial into planning. "If the weatherman says there's a 75 percent chance of rain, you take your umbrella," Shellenberger tells groups. Even people who clutched denial as their last, best hope can prepare, he says, for the next Katrina. Global warming preparation is both his antidote for helplessness and goad to collective action.
The report is grim stuff. Whatever we do today, we face long-range global problems with a short-term local attention span. We're no happier looking at this global thermostat than we are looking at the nuclear doomsday clock.
Can we change from debating global warming to preparing? Can we define the issue in ways that turn denial into action? In America what matters now isn't environmental science, but political science.
We are still waiting for the time when an election hinges on a candidate's plans for a changing climate. That's when the light bulb goes on.
Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is goodman@globe.com.
EMAIL YOUR OUTRAGE TO HER!!
Posted (twice)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1782150/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1782011/posts
Tells me that there are a lot of stupid Dems.
I guess I was really mad! oops...
Third time's the charm.
what made me mad was the assertion that not believing it was akin to denying the holocaust...absolutely deplorable.
Dosent make it a bad article..
...looking for that mega-barf image......
Sheesh. Ellen Goodman just discovered energy saving light bulbs? And she bought ONE?
"I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future"
Sounds to me like "Goose-Stepping" to Al Gore's hysteria.
I guess she couldn't get the government grant.
I sent her this email...which I rarely do but I was FIRED up..
As a global warming skeptic (you choose to say denier) I take extreme offense to your assertion that " Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future". How dare you. There is not proof beyond a doubt by any strech of the imagination that man is the main reason for what could be a naturally occuring global pattern. It is absurd to brand people like me who are not convinced of this theory that we are akin to vermin like the leader of Iran. I am appalled at your assertion. Comparing an undeniable fully provable tragedy like the Holocaust with what is scientific theory is one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen in print. What's next, outlawing my opinions if I don't agree with the majority on something that is debatable? Sounds quite un-American to me. Man, I just can't get past what you said...your assertions make me ill.
"I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future."
I just bought some compact florescent bulbs last weekend and plan to start replacing the old incandescent (spell) bulbs as they go out. This is not because I believe in human-induced global warming (or that we can do anything about it) but because I think it makes some financial sense and may decrease the cost of energy from our local Power Company. I do take offense with the Holocaust comparison...though I am not surprised that the Left has drug it out.
"Anthropogenic Global Warming"
(man-caused, which is total BS)
How many liberals does it take to change a light bulb?
None, They just pass a law and wonder " Why is it still dark?".
Environmentally friendly? They're a source of mercury in the waste stream!
Idiots.
I too bought some of those bulbs that last like 100 years or whatver for the same reason...not to save the planet.
solid.
Apparently this guy was a skeptic of global warming as well...
http://www.examiner.com/a-556256~Author_attacked_in_S_F__hotel.html
One other point about these delirious leftys and the complicit media. Liberals have stuck their neck out on this issue and it will soon be chopped off.
They did it before with Time Mag's threat of "The Coming Ice Age" 35 years ag, but not many paid attention before, as I remember, but THIS TIME it's created such a dust-up that their credibility will once and for all be crushed. I wish it could happen tomorrow (upper NY state probably thinks it has).
And as always, I ask if global warming (which we agree is happening) is GOOD or BAD. I think it's a benefit for many reasons.
They peddle such bunk, it's hard to comprehend.
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