Daily Lobo columnist
opinion@dailylobo.com
Most of our global warming is caused by burning oil, coal and gas, clearing the forests and pumping methane into the atmosphere from farms, landfills and coal mines. Special interests, who couldn’t care less if much of the planet burns up in this century, don’t want you to worry about this when you vote. If we allow them to control the climate discussion and to muzzle all legislative attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we effectively condemn future generations to a much less hospitable environment in which to carry on the race, to say the least.
Fresh water is the stuff we drink and irrigate our crops with.
Humans have overpowered preindustrial natural climate warming influences, and as a result, the planet’s fresh water is being transferred into the upper atmosphere and the oceans. The result is droughts, massive crop failures, devastating storms and floods, catastrophic threats to water supplies in many regions of the world and the continuing decline of coastal marine life, upon which a substantial portion of the human population depends.
Ranchers throughout the Southwest are being forced to sell off their herds due to lack of water and feed. Most of the rivers in New Mexico have already turned to sand. The path we are on leads to increasing water shortages and forest fires, mass species extinction, the spread of global heat-related disease, famines and significant sea rise.
If our kids understood what we are doing, they would hate all of us, and rightfully so. They would recognize that food and fresh water are more important than owning the biggest trucks and all the other symbols of excessive pride and greed which we, as shallow, gullible adults, have been brainwashed into believing are essential to dignified human survival. And they would beg us to leave the rest of the coal and oil in the ground.
There is an overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence pointing to modern technology’s dangerous influence on climate.
Unfortunately, the changes we are causing have already begun to trigger more processes that amplify the effects of our meddling, and which will soon lead to rapid global heating that will be completely out of our control to reverse or reduce. Instead of sticking our heads in the sand, we’d better start paying attention to what the scientific community is telling us, and demand that our leaders start doing the same.
Climate change is now globally recognized by scientists as the leading threat to civilization in this century. There are no recent peer-reviewed scientific articles which dispute the fact that human intervention is the main cause. Yet right here in the Southwest, we have at least three Republican governors who are still in a complete state of denial regarding warming. Indeed, most Republican politicians, including Romney, imagine themselves in a fairy tale world, where they remain exempt from the laws of physics which so burden the rest of us. Climate warming denial could almost be called the foundation of most Republican platforms today.
Political leaders are afraid of economic chaos and of not being re-elected, so they kick the can down the road, delaying actions which are urgently required to prevent growing repercussions of continued human intervention with the biosphere. We thrive within a technological society and depend on the most advanced military in the world to protect our freedom. To prejudicially ignore science when it comes to human-induced climate change is not rational. We urgently need to elect people who are capable of understanding the real priority of the issues we face, and of providing the leadership that is required to confront these issues.
The Republican Party has fought every single attempt at regulation of the energy industries, using conservative think tank slogans and big money to drown out the facts and to keep America in the back seat when it comes to global attempts to address carbon levels in the oceans and atmosphere.
The window for the United States to take a lead in the desperate fight to prevent our self-annihilation will not be open for much longer if we continue to insist that we are not responsible for the effects of our industrialization. Other nations are watching us closely and are poised to follow our example. If we elect a president who doesn’t even acknowledge the most important problem we face, countries will know that we will not be doing anything to regulate our emissions.
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That means they will either act independently of the United States, and we will have squandered what little international goodwill we have left and turned everyone against us. Or, even worse, the other nations will consider it a hopeless battle because the biggest polluters refuse to address the problem, no one will do anything and the warming will continue until all the ice is gone.
This is a pivotal moment in our history. The least intellectually inquisitive president of modern times, not coincidentally also a climate denier, invaded the wrong country. We are the arsenal of democracy for the free world, as we see ourselves, but our fellow nations are demanding much more of us. We cannot solve problems by refusing to acknowledge them, and ignorance is not an effective leadership strategy. It is no time for continued delusional Republican fantasies. One more climate denier in the Oval Office, and no one will be taking us seriously in the future.
