A chilling analysis of a widespread problem

[randr]

From the recent New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060320ta_talk_kolbert

"In January, six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, five of whom had served under Republican Administrations, met with the current administrator, Stephen Johnson, for a panel discussion in Washington. Panelists were asked to hold up their hands if they believed global warming to be a real problem, for which human activity was responsible. Every one of them, Johnson included, raised a hand.
But where there’s a will there is, indeed, always a way. The new argument making the rounds of conservative think tanks, like the National Center for Policy Analysis, and circulating through assorted sympathetic publications goes something like this: Yes, the planet may be warming up, but no one can be sure of why, and, in any case, it does not’t matter—let’s stop quibbling about the causes of climate change and concentrate on dealing with the consequences."


Conservatives and liberals alike make this same mistake over and over. They argue over how to deal with consequences and never address the causes.
In all the problems facing us we never discuss nor further resolve the deep reasons for our nations problems.
On abortion: Why are there so many unwanted pregnancies? Why is there so much violence against women?
On the environment: Why do some people think they have right to pollute at all? Is pollution a cause of so much of our health problem?
On the "war on terrorism": Why do these people want to do us harm?
The political atmosphere we are suffering under has thrown reason out the door and replaced it with skepticism. We are a nation of talking heads arguing around subjects we have no intention of understanding.
The "war on terrorism" is so much like the "war on drugs" or the "war on poverty": There is no intent to understand and resolve the suffering of people. There is only the continual perpetuation of government and, now, private institutional intervention into our lives for the soul purpose of giving profit to the supporters of the current political talking heads.
I am so sick and tired of the "debate" over how to fix the problems we refuse to accept responsibility for.
Will we ever get beyond this dilemma?

[ret5hd]

1. it's not a dilemma...it's a strategy.

[randr]

2. I am afraid you right on.

[kenny blankenship]

3. Global warming just means a longer margarita season!

and you'll get more rental income from that beach house too.

[Kailassa]

5. And who would you rent it to?

A fish farm?

[SheilaT]

4. Except they aren't

even dealing with the consequences. If they were, they'd be actively discouraging people from building in low-lying coastal areas where more and stronger hurricanes are going to strike because of global warming. If they were they'd be actively reassessing our farm policies, because global warming is going to have a profound affect on crops. If they were they'd be rethinking how many people should be living in desert areas because of water shortages.

And so on. But they aren't doing any of those things, because individually these people are completely protected from the consequences of global warming. So they don't really give a shit, even if they sometimes pretend they do.

[Lisa]

6. yeah -- the Katrina mess warned us how "adaptive" strategies could fail

And given that the administration has already announced that they intend to focus on adaptation -- this basically demonstrates one of the things climatologists have been arguing. When we don't know how big the disasters could be -- and the Bushies have a mindset where swaggering around with guns is the only way to respond to emergencies (though it hasn't even been proven to be effective when dealing with terrorist/military threats) -- we're setting ourselves up for disaster.

As you say, they aren't even dealing with the consequences, although the "adaptive" strategies are supposed to do just that!