I've been thinking about this piece, and working towards it, for a long time. I'm posting various versions of this around the blogosphere, where I can get feedback. It's a long piece and it's on a subject people prefer to ignore, so I'm grateful for the people who took time to read it at least skimmingly.
So far a few minor errors were pointed out and have been corrected. But the most interesting comment that came up several times was that the doomsday scenario, which I describe in shorthand as Earth=Mars, should really be Earth=Venus, because an overheated Earth would come to resemble Venus more. In fact, some believe that something like a greenhouse effect did happen to Venus.
But the basic idea is to quickly communicate the idea of a live planet becoming a dead one. Mars seems to me to convey that idea better and quicker, while Venus has other associations, but I don't know-- I'm still torn. I'd be grateful for other opinions on this subject, or anything else in this essay.
Partly because I used actual html to embed links for several of the blog sites, I'm going to link to one of them, partly for convenience, but partly for your opportunity to sample the comments. I'll link to Booman Tribune, where (coincidentally) this essay was frontpaged on Tuesday.
UPDATE: It's been frontpaged at E Pluribus Media today. A slightly different type style for your eye.
International climate talks have begun in Montreal, while a disconnect, a gap, grows ever larger and more tragic.
On the one hand, this conference is the occasion for the latest research to be announced, which is telling us one story.
On the other, there is the diplomatic dithering, posturing and above all, the distance between what action is proposed---not only in degree but in kind---and what science is telling us about the problem.
When political activists aren’t ignoring the phenomenon that is going to dominate political life for the foreseeable future, they are arguing about the wrong actions. And Democrats who talk about nothing except Kyoto and fossil fuel emissions are setting themselves up to be co-opted.
Sooner or later the Republicans are going to do a 180 and admit that global heating is real---but there is nothing we can do to stop it.
And they will be right.
Then what are you going to do?
Part of the problem is that there isn’t one problem: there are two.
There is the Climate Crisis, which will affect everything for the next fifty years. And then there is the possible end-game of the far future, which I call Earth=Mars.
Two sets of problems with different actions required. Getting this wrong is politically suicidal, not to mention self-destructive on a vastly larger scale.
No comments:
Post a Comment