[Vision2020] Global Climate Change Responses - A Proposal

[Garrett Clevenger]

Paul writes:

"I don't like the tendency to frame this issue as a moral one. There are all sorts of good reasons not to just ban oil and coal tomorrow. How do you think your food gets to the supermarket? How many people survive the winters because of coal plants? How much are crop yields increased because of modern fertilizers?"



This is a moral issue.  It wouldn't be an issue if it weren't.

The fact that we're being asked to reduce our use of fossil fuel (what feeds our desires) in order to reduce the impact we have on the future is a moral argument.

I have little faith humans will do the right thing.  We don't like to change, especially if it means potential hardships and loss of profits.  This is an uphill fight for conservationists and people who understand the underlying morality.

People are too self-centered to be concerned about possible future impacts.  The course we're on probably won't be changed in time.  There will always be people who resist seeing the bigger picture and the world will suffer from that.

Paul implies that a ban on fossil fuels is seriously being suggested.  That's a red herring.  I can appreciate his argument to an extent but that statement ruins it.

Of course we rely on fossil fuels for all kinds of things.  I'm a farmer who uses a tractor and appreciates having that instead of breaking my back tilling the soil.  I don't want to live in cave.

We don't have to use so much, though.  There are ways to reduce our impacts.

The fact is that fossil fuel is the enabler for our lifestyle which in turn is probaly the greater threat to the planet.

That is, we now are able to chop down the rain forests at unprecedented rates.  We're now able to produce all kinds of toxic chemicals which are the silent killer we're subjecting the world to.  Countless airplanes crisscross the sky pumping their pollution right into the ozone layer.

Unsustainable human populations, habitat loss, high levels of species extinction and water and air pollution are the consequence of burning fossil fuel and that will have as much impact on the future as climate change may.

While climate change may be an important issue to address, it's too bad that people are more fixated on that then on all the other real and drastic consequences of burning fossil fuel.

We may be richer then ever due to fossil fuel, but that'll come at a cost to future generations.

That to me is the definition of immoral behavior...

Garrett