When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. -- Thomas Jefferson
Many so-called "Blue Staters" are susceptible to the notions of the global warming alarmists. I had always marveled at the number of people who would buy into the improbable scenarios that are protrayed in works of fiction such as The Day After Tomorrow, Reefer Madness and An Inconvenient Truth.
I enjoy a good eco-scare story. Movies like Damnation Alley were a good way to kill a few on a rainy Sunday. The problem is when government officials' attitudes start reflecting some of the fears put out by these works of overt irrationality.
Most of us have never feared winged monkeys despite watching the Wizard of Oz some 35 times. Why should we fear the world tilting on its axis, Earth running out of oxygen, or whole states totally swamped out by tsunamis.
Then it occurred to me. New Yorkers, not to pick on them, but to give the seminal example, are often at the mercy of their environment. How many remember the plight of New York City residents when the garbage workers went out on strike? Now that is an environmental catastrophe. Garbage could take over your whole life. It would pile up at the doors, and eventually trap you in your apartment building. There is indeed a reason to believe that your environment can affect you in New York.
Meanwhile, out in the real world, there's plenty of room to roam around. Our garbage is well tended to, and there is no obvious environmental or population problem. In fact, bring on the tired, the poor, the wretched refuse; we have room here.
Here, yes in red state country, we observe that the earth is resilient, renewable, and irrepressible. We can handle all the carbon dioxide you want to send our way. Anyone who doesn't think so, should regard the dandelion. The point is, none of us should believe we have nearly as much impact on the environment as the movies would seem to say we do.
There is also a big danger in letting the big city types set any kind of environmental policy. From where they stand, something has to be done. Maybe so, but they should keep the cures to themselves, and let the rest of us live our lives free from their "solutions".
3 comments:
Good points. There's another set of issues too, people more used to a rural environment, particularly hunters and farmers, don't have the same tendency to over idealize, romanticize, or anthropomorphize nature. People who live in cities, and who only occasionally, if at all, get "back to nature" tend to think of it in Garden of Eden terms, a perfect place of harmony and tranquility that is only despoiled by Man's presence. It's the same Original Sin concept carried into a "secular" arena.
Thus we have people waxing poetic about the lives of animals and nature and such, where in reality nature is brutish, cruel, and unpleasant, if also beautiful and majestic. They imagine simple, pastoral lives of serenity and peace, and never take the time to actually look at the societies in the world who still live this way, or actually read history, to realize how short, brutal, and unpleasant such lives are by comparison to those lived surrounded by technological splendor and support.
Thus you wind up with the Church of Global Warming, where carbon credits take the place of Papal indulgences, despoiling Gaia with our very presence replaces Original Sin (they both led to the loss of the Garden of Eden/Paradise), and the amazingly arrogant belief that we can control nature, or even alter it on a global scale. Yes, we can poison our own nests, and we know how to deal with that, at least we do in the industrialized West, but CO2 is not now or ever will be a "pollutant."
P.S. I also loved Damnation Alley, particularly the killer cockroaches! I saw that film back in college and just loved the cheesy effects and the cool vehicles. If I saw it now it'd seem naked without the robot heads in the lower corner though...
Many good insights there, too.
The people dwelling in a man-made venue have the sense that man is capable of many things, including destroying that environment. In fact, while we can put up structures, and tear them down, the earth spins around with no consideration for what man has wrought. We can't have the slightest effect on the earth. And even if we could, don't you think someone would have improved the weather in Washington DC by now? This belief system spawns fears and superstitions that the politicians take advantage of. It's time to dismiss them all before they sep on our freedoms even more.
Post a Comment