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Quote by: Loesoweekuff  To me, it boils down to this: If global warming is a scam, then people will lose money. If it's NOT a scam, then the consequences could be more dire.
Imagine that you are a person who doesn't know all that much about global warming, and you know it. You have heard that it could be a problem, but you're no meteorologist; basically you know that some people say that it's just a scare and call it a "doomsday theory", while others say that it is a real problem and call for individuals to take action.
I'm speculating that this is the position of your average American. That's how I am, pretty much. Now, based on what I know, I can do one of two things...I can buy a car that doesn't use much gas and has good emissions etc...or, for the sake of image, I can buy an SUV or a hummer, not only running the risk of contributing to global warming, but help to speed depletion of oil (it'll run out today, tomorrow, or in two hundred years, either way, it'll run out)
In my opinion, very few people have the right to go right out and say that global warming IS NOT a problem, period, OR that it IS a problem, period. The only people who have the right to do that are people who are good scientists and people who have done a LOT of research, who question everything.
I don't know for SURE if global warming is or isn't a problem...neither does the average American (or maybe they think they know for sure). But if you take the stance that you don't really know for sure, as I do, then it seems more logical to take precautions against a possible threat than it is to shrug, say "whatever" and go burn another gallon of gas. |
Better safe than sorry is a truly wise policy, but unfortunately, in this case the 'safe' could spell disaster to hundreds of millions of people or else it is simply lip service to assuage the guilt of the leftist religionists.
Use CFCs instead of the cheaper, more efficient incandescent bulb they say and save the planet. But already the train of the issue of disposing of the toxic waste in the CFCs is beginning to roll. Use hybrid and electric cars they say with no analysis of the energy offset from assembly line to junkyard.
Not a single member signed onto Kyoto have come close to meeting the 'mandatory standards of reduction of CO2', but the most recent world summit bravely increased those standards just the same as if talking the talk would make the difference. Meanwhile high paid scientists, movie stars waving their petition signs, and the mama of all environmental gurus, Al Gore himself, have not downsized their houses or their automobiles or reduced their energy consumption or parked their power boats, yachts, and private airplanes. Energy reduction is for the little people like us, not the important people like them. And they wonder why some of us think they aren't all that frightened about or committed to the doom and gloom scenario they paint.
Meanwhile the rest of us are saddled with expensive mandates that reduce our choices, freedoms, and perhaps, in a few cases, our quality of life. And hundreds of millions of people in the Third World will be sentenced to more generations of crushing poverty when they are not able to utilize their natural resources to prosper as all the rest of us have already done.
Sometimes it is better to be safe than sorry. But sometimes it isn't safety but rather it is utter folly they are suggesting.