The point of the Gore ad, and Allan's point really (when you heard what else he had to say), is that this isn't a negative thing ... that we can live better as a result of addressing climate change. Skeptics of climate change have, for the better part of the last decade, denounced environmentalists over climate change, suggesting (usually in snide tones) that they are interested in dismantling industrialized civilization and forcing people to live in caves and eat what berries they could pluck from nearby bushes. I feel a great deal of contempt for this line of thought. Not only because it ignores the potential outcomes of a problem that it belittles (and steeped in scientific ignorance), but also because it seeks to truthlessly seize the high ground. This is not a point of view that is positive, but a negative one. It seeks to constrain achievement, not promote it. What is meant by achievement? I mean that we can live better by living more intelligently. I mean that living for future generations requires more than words. I mean that advancing mankind means looking for newer, brighter, better ways of doing things; not remaining mired in the past. History honors those people who help find positive solutions to seemingly intractable problems; it scorns those who stand in the way. There are plenty of environmental problems, and they are all worthy of addressing, but none more fundamental and daunting as that of climate change. That's because there is no more important relationship we have with this planet than the one we have with its weather patterns. Understanding those patterns, and how those patterns change, affect our knowing where we can live without fear of being flooded out and where we can plant our food with confidence that it will produce. Addressing a problem of this magnitude requires the implementation of solutions on every level. This is a moment by which this nation, as a whole, defines itself. It is indeed a transformational moment, where a truly great nation will, rather than recoiling before a challenge, instead roll up its sleeves and use it as an opportunity to make itself better. |
