Tom Toles' commentary (not directly on the topic of this cartoon, but close enough):
This will be my last rant about the climate. Cartoonists sometimes look just like the archetypical cartoon character crawling across the desert. Gary Larson did a cartoon about two guys crawling across a desert, dying of thirst. They have come upon a drinking fountain. One is letting it run without drinking and saying he's going to let it run until it gets cold. That's about as sensible as the debate on climate change.
We are apparently going to let the debate on the science run until hell freezes over. If you can't accept the conclusions of 98 percent of the scientists whose FIELD IT IS, then why even bother with science? If that high a percentage of field of study is to be discounted ENTIRELY, then we are in deep trouble, which, of course, we are. It would be so simple if it were just a matter of ignoring the yelping commenters hereabouts: "Move on, Mr. Cartoonist! Chill out Tommy! There are more important things to worry about!"
Really? Which would those things be? This may be the only political issue whose results could be catastrophic PERMANENTLY. But the deliberate dust storm thrown up by fossil-fuel-centric interests has succeeded in contaminating and paralyzing the American response. Quite a victory for the deniers! It looks like mass-suicide to me. And so, my final rant on climate. Except not really. There has to be a drinking fountain out there somewhere.
He makes a great point there, doesn't he? If you're going to ignore the conclusion of 98% of the scientists who specialize in this field, why bother with science at all? If your uneducated guess, your gut feeling, or the ignorant ranting of some politician is worth more to you than the overwhelming consensus of the scientific experts - on a scientific issue like this - what's the point of even giving lip service to science? Why pretend that you see any value in science at all?
Of course, we do the same thing with evolution, and in that case the consensus of biologists is far higher than just 98%. But evolution isn't an issue this immediately dangerous to human life. And opposition to that is not just a matter of ignorance, but of clinging desperately to ancient religious beliefs. Well, global warming deniers show a similar faith-based mindset, I must admit. Heh, heh. It's kind of ironic, I guess. If anything shows that we're just one species of ape, only slightly smarter than other apes, it's this.
That political cartoon is a good one, too, isn't it? Unfortunately, that mad dog could destroy our country, if we let it. I thought the GOP was bad during the Bush years, but we really hadn't seen anything yet, had we? They almost destroyed us then, and now they seem determined to finish the job. And so far, we seem to be dumb enough to let them.
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3 comments:
I have been pointing out much the same things as Tom Toles for more years than I care to remember, but I must admit I am weary of doing so. I have come to the conclusion that no-one is going to do anything worthwhile about climate change until it's far too late.
Governments will start to panic once the evidence becomes incontrovertible (although the True Believers - or in this case, Deniers - will not be convinced by any evidence, of course) and will then probably rush into ill-considered geoengineering activities which do little to help and could conceivably make matters worse.
It does make me wonder whether we are not seeing in action the reason why there don't appear to be any extra-solar civilisations around: because in developing the kind of high technology needed to be noticed from another planet, they also develop the means to destroy their civilisation?
Tony, my worst nightmare is that we miss the one opportunity we have to really move forward as a species, that by degrading our environment and squandering our resources, we end up stuck in an ever-declining rut.
In the 20th Century, we had abundant oil and other fossil fuels, with no big worries yet about global warming. We had abundant resources, oceans full of fish, good cropland, healthy forests, clean water, and a population small enough to feed and educate, if we'd put our minds to it. And for the first time in our history, we had the scientific knowledge to solve pretty much all of our problems and even to explore the rest of our solar system.
But we blew it. We could have solved our problems - limited our population, conserved our resources, protected our environment, and found ways to wean ourselves off of oil, among other things - but we refused to do it. Now I wonder, will we have another opportunity?
What will happen in 40 years, when there are another 3 billion people on the planet, when our oceans have been almost completely degraded, when a runaway greenhouse effect is putting a blowtorch to our planet? We'll have far more people to support, and fewer resources with which to do it. Will we have to give up "luxuries" like scientific research and space exploration?
Did we miss the one chance we had, just because we weren't smart enough to take it? I hope not, but it does seem possible, especially since I see absolutely no sign that we're getting serious about any of this now. (Some people are working hard on all of these issues, of course, but they seem to be a distinct minority. Most prefer to just stick their heads in the sand.)
I hope that you're not right, but I share your fears. The problem is that humanity has elevated "muddling through" and "it'll be alright on the night" to articles of faith, but there are some issues which require long-term planning and determined, coordinated action.
We dropped the ball in the 1980s. This was when global warming was first recognised as a serious threat and world leaders like Margaret Thatcher and even Ronald Reagan's staff started to talk about the need for dramatic action to counter it. However, Reagan was rapidly nobbled by a campaign started by the big oil companies and related financial interests, whose definition of "action to combat climate change" was "discrediting the scientists warning about it". Things have been going downhill ever since.
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