John Holdren, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said Wednesday that the evidence for dangerously climbing temperatures is "absolutely stunning." He also said that virtually all climate scientists agree that the cause of global warm is greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels. The world's most urgent need, he said, is "a massive effort to slow the pace of global climatic disruption before intolerable consequences become inevitable."
All that is well and good but unless we go directly from bumbling democracy to ruthless dictatorship there's no way people are going to significantly reduce their use of fossil fuels. If you disagree, try to get people to park their cars and use bicycles in a city like Los Angeles. They will tell you what a great idea that is, even as they climb into their 5,000 pound SUVs to drive a quarter mile to buy a loaf of stone ground, honey sweetened, seven grain bread. The most that could happen, even under the strictest environmental regime now imaginable, is that we slow the rate of CO2 growth in the atmosphere by statistically insignificant amount. But that will be enough. In five or ten years when the real cause of global warming--the sun's increased solar activity and stronger magnetic field--begins to dissipate and the earth begins to cool, environmentalists will rush to take credit for saving the earth. The only prob lem will be their need to explain how their efforts did any good whatsover, considering that the percentage of atmospheric CO2 increased every year since their campaign started.
All that is well and good but unless we go directly from bumbling democracy to ruthless dictatorship there's no way people are going to significantly reduce their use of fossil fuels. If you disagree, try to get people to park their cars and use bicycles in a city like Los Angeles. They will tell you what a great idea that is, even as they climb into their 5,000 pound SUVs to drive a quarter mile to buy a loaf of stone ground, honey sweetened, seven grain bread. The most that could happen, even under the strictest environmental regime now imaginable, is that we slow the rate of CO2 growth in the atmosphere by statistically insignificant amount. But that will be enough. In five or ten years when the real cause of global warming--the sun's increased solar activity and stronger magnetic field--begins to dissipate and the earth begins to cool, environmentalists will rush to take credit for saving the earth. The only prob lem will be their need to explain how their efforts did any good whatsover, considering that the percentage of atmospheric CO2 increased every year since their campaign started.
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