Outside the Argument about Global Warming

Right now, countless factories, power plants, and automobiles are pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the polar ice caps are shrinking, and politicians are debating the seriousness of what may be an environmental crisis or a natural cycle. The topic of global warming has been debated for decades and yet, instead of producing any kind of consensus or compromise, this argument has done nothing more that divide the public into two stubborn, disagreeable parties. Each side has declared it's opinion, denied that their opinion is anything unquestionable fact, and chosen a political party to be their representative. Once again the Liberals and Conservatives in Washington have turned a serious debate into a battlefield. The issue is no longer "What is it and what can we do?" the issue is now "How can we use this to gain political standing?"

If scientists thought a massive asteroid might be headed for earth in a couple decades, we would not waste our time talking about whether it would miss us or decimate the planet's surface. We would tell NASA to postpone anything that didn't involve stopping the asteroid and start working on a solution. Why do we treat global warming with such nonchalance?

Those who believe in humanity's part in global warming point to the massive population that we now have, the countless pollution-spewing machines that now cover the world, and the natural habitats that we have consumed in our need to grow and expand. They bring up natural records of the varying levels of carbon dioxide, the polar ice caps, recent records of the weather. Lately, the world has been racked by various natural disasters; floods swept through Europe, hurricanes tormented the Americas, and droughts devastated Africa and the last decade has been one of the hottest on record. Even exceptionally cold winters may indicate global warming because it messes with every aspect of the climate.

Those who count this as a natural cycle point to other times when the climate changed in history. They bring up the algae that span across the ocean and many other natural environments that remain untouched. They talk about the Medieval warming period and say that we are overreacting to a common natural phenomenon. After all, the world was once devastated by a phenomenon that historians fitfully call the Year Without a Summer.

If global warming is as serious as some suggest, then the results would be catastrophic. The patterns according to which rainfall is distributed would be completely rearranged, forcing farmers and builders to deal with entirely new situations, the weather would continue to display its destructive potential, and the sea level would rise, remaking the geography of the world. While technology should be able to make the climate changes survivable, the damage that it would cause would still be tremendous.

Of course, the greatest danger would not come from the environment itself. With the sea level rising, many small nations would be swallowed up by the oceans. Needless to say, these once-sovereign nations would not be the least bit pleased to be reduced to governments-in-exile. Perhaps some of these nations would be able to reach peaceable agreements with their new hosts, but at least some of the landless nations will come into armed conflicts with the sovereign nations in which they take residence. However, this is not an age of kings and emperors. This is not an age of stone-faced soldiers who form up into nice, neat lines to kill each other in an orderly fashion. This is an age of civilian warfare; of common individuals who are drafted not by sovereign states, but by mob mentality. The idea that such individuals would not rise up in every nation conquered by the rising tide is almost laughable.

In a world plunged into such chaos, how hard would it be for the great nations of the world to find excuses to involve themselves in the affairs of their neighbors? How long would it take for Russia to send armed soldiers across its borders into former members of the Soviet Union? Is it possible that global warming could change not only the climate and the landscape, but also human politics? Could such drastic changes bring back the expansionist policies that seemed to have died with Hitler?

Such are the risks of assuming that global warming is a myth. Yet the risks involved in assuming it is fact are almost nonexistent. The ways in which common individuals can combat global warming are mainly based on conserving energy which generally is nothing but beneficial. The use of more efficient energy would have no downsides and the technology involved already exists. Conservatives often suggest that by addressing the issue of global warming, we would be giving power to radical environmentalists and other members of the far Left. If this were to happen, it would only be because no conservative bothered to venture into what appeared to be liberal territory. The greatest threat coming from taking action against the possibility of global warming would be realized only if conservatives traveled half of the journey.

And so once again, I must say that the issue here is not whether or not global warming exists. That is an issue that can only be completely resolved by time. Therefore, the only basis on which we must make our decisions are the possibilities and the risks involved in each assumption.