I’ve written similar things before, but like any discussion on global warming I’d like to frame my personal stance. I believe humans have a drastic affect on the environment. From straight pollution to the destruction of habitat to global warming, the existence of man has a significant effect on the world around us. I think we’re causing global warming, but I disagree that it’s in humanity’s best interest to fight it using the currently proposed methodology. I feel there are other concerns to human life that are more important. Disease, war, hunger, and poverty should all take priority over global warming. These are tangible things with easily verifiable statistical results in the longevity of humans.

In my arguments I appear to be a global warming denier. I’ve mentioned before that global warming is a red herring, and I stand by that assertion, but I also firmly believe that humans are causing it, or at the very least exacerbating it. Yesterday the new Wired was deliverd to our door, and in was an article on how to combat global warming. They obviously framed the article as a straw man, but the article makes a wonderful point in subtext, coincidentally it’s the same argument I have made in the past. Give it a read. And go through each of the different sections to see what they surmise as to be the best ways to combat global warming the quickest.

The comments are getting pretty crazy on the wired page. Evangelical environmentalists are up in arms, and they seem to be missing the point. The article is a straw man that is trying to point out what’s wrong with the current discussion of climate change. Rather than focusing on man as a part of the world, environmentalists are rallying behind something specious in the grand scheme of perpetual human inhabitation of the Earth. Ecological footprint is the discussion we need to have. Global warming is just an aspect of our ecological footprint, and not even the worst one, but it is being sold as the whole deal.

It does however miss the quickest way to control global warming. Kill off 2/3s of the world’s population… they get credit for mentioning the black plague though.

Read the Article at Wired.com

Tags: efficiency,global warming,wired
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
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