Global Warming: How We Got Here and Why We Shouldn't Beat Ourselves Up About It

Photo: Carl Mydans/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Global warming, climate change: We've made a mess of things. But should we beat ourselves up about it? The fact is, the way we view the world is largely based on the situation a hundred odd years ago.

To Change the Future, We Need to Understand the Past
Our grandparents, our great-grandparents, they just didn't know any better. At that time, the world's population was a quarter of what it is now, resources felt infinite, and our tools were much less powerful. The oceans and forests seemed to go on forever...and it was easy to develop a cavalier attitude towards our resources..which we did.

Since then, our tools -- from cars, boats, and planes to farm machinery, fertilizers, and robots -- have grown much more powerful, and much more likely to make a mark on the world. Add to that four times as many people and the same general attitude towards our resources, and it's easy to understand why we are in this predicament now.

Before we can change, we need to understand where we went wrong. We need to see through our grandparents' lens first, this outdated lens we are still using, in order to toss it for the better, greener version.

Now, We are More Powerful
We are a lot of people, we have powerful tools and our economic systems tend to not include the real value of our priceless ecosystems into their cost. Things are not infinite. All of these things we encounter in day-to-day life have a limit.

Our task now is to fully appreciate the true rules on Spaceship Earth. We need to change our culture and therefore our systems so that we can build a world that will allow our species to live in balance with it. We weren't bad...we just thought we had different parameters.

Now it's time to re-think how we live. And I'm convinced we can do it.

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Comments

[rupert12]

The real source of our dysfunctional relationship with the planet goes back much further than that. The way I see it, there are two fundamental aspects of the western mindset that have gotten us here:

1) Nature is something to be conquered and controlled.
2) Individual ownership of land, resources, etc. The earth is something to be divided up and extracted from, rather than a living being that is to be revered as the source of all life.

Human societies without these attributes lived productive and meaningful existences for thousands of years with little negative impact on their environment.

We often think of ourselves as superior to "primitive" cultures because we have technology that they were too "stupid" to come up with themselves. Another way to look at it is that they did not have any desire or need to do so. Our ancestors could have learned something from these people when they first encountered them. Instead they were persecuted and often slaughtered. Product of the times or not, I place direct blame upon the greed and ignorance of those who have come before us going back a long, long way.

[Mogamboguru]

Global Warming - yeah, sure:

http://www.dailytech.com/Australian+Astronomical+Society+Warns+of+Global+Cooling/article12250.htm

Australian Researchers Warn of Global Cooling

A new paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia is warning of upcoming global cooling due to lessened solar activity. The study, written by three Australian researchers, has identified what is known as a "spin-orbit coupling" affecting the rotation rate of the sun. That rotation, in turn, is linked to the intensity of the solar cycle and climate changes here on Earth.

The study's lead author, Ian Wilson, explains further, "[The paper] supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 - 30 years."

And:

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/03/16/the-coming-global-cooling/

The Coming Global Cooling?

An article has appeared in a recent issue of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics with a curious title "Multi-scale analysis of global temperature changes and trend of a drop in temperature in the next 20 years." Wow, that"s a mouthful! Imagine publishing a paper in a respected, peer-reviewed scientific journal in which you predict global cooling over the next few decades?

Ever heard about an "Urban Legend"? Global warming is one.

[Cathexis]

So is "gravity." (obligatory roll of eyes)

[KillTheMessenger]

Three words:

People are stupid.

There is nothing more you need to know about how we got here. It's a simple matter of an, on average, failed education. It does not matter how smart the smarter ones are, as long as the majority can't think, they will mess it up.

[Photofarm]

LOL, how funny, the strength of the United States has been the average guy, not the elite snobs from the Ivy League schools.

[leduck]

well
intellgence fallows a bell-curve

there will always be smart people and dumb
but most people will be average
always was
always will be

smart people can screw things up too if they have no sense of morality

[leduck]

follows a bell-curve

fallows -- lol
that's hilarious

[mergina]

You're right, we should not beat ourselves up over global warming, the same way we should not beat ourselves up for medical problems spawned before we knew any better about what our diet and our decaying environment are doing to us. We need to forgive ourselves, embrace each other AS A SPECIES, one species, one world, and get to work IMMEDIATELY to stall and eventually reverse the damage we are doing to the balance needed to sustain us on our only home, EARTH.

[mamacat]

As IAMSCUMO said, we can't ignore the population explosion, and hope to have a successful energy and climate program. Although, without new energy programs, even halving the population won't be enough.

Also, this post ignores the intentional efforts of American corporations to stear our society towards where we are today. Standard Oil, GM, and others have been influencing the economy and the government to their benefit. There are numerous examples of their behaviour, including their decision to help their stock holders by buying up and shutting down close to 50 of this nation's light rail mass transit systems in the mid 20th century. They were found guilty of conspiracy in court, and fined $5,000.

To replace the mass transit systems that Standard Oil and GM and others shut down, might cost a little more than $5,000.

So, how we got where we are is more complicated than what our ancestors' attitudes toward energy use and the environment were.

[research]

It's time to switch to solar, wind and electric cars. fastest cheapest way out of this mess.

See my profile for details.

[Mogamboguru]

In this, I TOTALLY agree with you.

But I highly despise the use of the "GLOBAL-WARMING-MYTH" to sell this approach to the people.

There were times, when it was a good habit for the rulers, to tell their constituency the TRUTH.

Truth is: Oil, Gas and Coal are running out. And we need to replace them SOON. Period. That's all, the people need to know, to support proper action.

No need for "Global Warming" here.

Just tell the truth.

That's enough.

[iamscum0]

You identify the problem and then ignore it. The problem is not our carbon footprint but that there are 6.5 billion carbon footprints. If we do not start controlling the population, the human species will not survive. Nothing that you do to reduce our carbon footprint matters in the least if the population is not reduced. 2 billion humans with our technology equals paradise, 10 billion humans with any technology equals mass starvation and the elimination of specie diversity on this planet. WAKE UP and talk about the real problem. The rest is just BS.

[KillTheMessenger]

Are you going to supervise the euthanasia programs?

I always wonder about the people who blame it all on population growth and then don't tell us how we can reduce the population. Human population size is simply not a variable in a sane world. You can talk about it all you want, but there is nothing you can do about it, at least not within the framework I or any normal person will be willing to discuss.

[leduck]

euthanasia?
how about contraception?
maybe more condems
and better education

population must be dealt with
the population is this large because of the green revolution
which was provided to you by natural gas

we may end up in a population crash or die-off if we simply ignore it

[mamacat]

China adoped their one child law in 1979, and it is estimated to have prevented a rise in population in that country of at least 300 million (roughly the population size of the U.S.).

If some day the U.S. decides that we must take the population explosion seriously, we might ourselves look into something similar to what the Chinese have done to help control our own population explosion.

It would certainly be helpful if the Catholic Pope and the Mormon supreme elder declared that God had spoken to them, and that she wants the faithful to stop being so fruitful.

[Mildmannered]

However, corn ethanol mandate is bad economic policy and bad energy policy.