Ryan ChartrandI wrote about the global warming (AGW) debate last week, evoking the predictable feedback and flack, some of it apt and intriguing, some of it silly and sophomoric.
I daresay that it seems to ruffle the feathers of many when a lowly, non-scientist half-wit commoner hazards an opinion on this issue. While I humbly admit to fitting the description, describing my glowing qualifications would be a tragic digression and likely an unnecessary one at that.
The more obvious matter that deserves consideration is, why does the lowly, non-scientist, half-wit commoner even bother with trumpeting his two cents worth? You do not find debates about the veracity of quantum mechanics theory spilling into the public papers and inciting the same spirited, if generally hopelessly uninformed, debate as global warming prompts. Why is it that this scientific debate proceeds in such an unscientific manner?
Whatever your beliefs about global warming, you have to admit it’s a pretty motley crew that’s caught in the tangle, everyone from mad and (let us pray) brilliant scientists to average, but concerned, Joes, to swarms of blustering, blaring politicians, among them a former vice-president. Isn’t it a perplexing curiosity that this debate, which you would expect to be properly confined to the halls of science, spills out like a drunken brawl onto the public streets?
The world has not enjoyed such a debate since a certain Italian genius challenged the its established understanding of the orientation of celestial bodies. But this time it isn’t anyone’s particular religious prejudices that drive a wedge between proponents and opponents of global warming. No, this debate is fueled by something much more material. Some might call it a “green movement,” and that is exactly what it is, for it is driven by money.
While there are many who are indignant that such an important debate should count among its participants rough yokels, let me assure you, it’s to be expected. The debate concerning global warming is emphatically forced into the public square because it concerns the public treasury – that is, yours and my tax dollars. The simple, unavoidable truth is, when it regards the public’s money, the public may debate it. This is a democracy after all.
At this point, it becomes quite obvious why the debate is as inflammatory as it is. If the world is warming, we must (so we are told) spend billions and trillions to repulse it for both posterity’s and our sakes. If the globe is not warming, I’m sure I’m not alone in expressing the sentiment that we’ll be happy to keep our money, if you please.
When you consider this understanding of the debate, it becomes clear that there are only two truly important parties to this debate. The first one wants to take and spend your money – after all, no single individual or private group seems willing to tender the trillions necessary to avert the impending catastrophe – presumably for noble, even sentimental, causes, like children yet to be.
The second group, whatever their belief, whether they believe the world is melting or freezing or turning somersaults, is much more likeable for it does not demand the public’s money.
The world is warming or it is freezing; either way, certain disaster looms. In either scenario, the convicted catastrophist might insist, even demand, that the government is authorized to take whatever means necessary. I disagree. But even so, the certainty of the disaster as well as the efficacy of the means to mollify it must both be established prior to making demands on the public treasury. Surely, nobody contends this elementary step. And only a true zealot consciously avoiding any inconvenient facts would claim that both requirements have been met.
Now, please, don’t mistake me to relish trampling on anyone’s inner barometer. That is the last thing I would desire. If you believe the world is warming, please gather your comrades and take all the necessary precautions. If you believe the world to be freezing, I urge you to do likewise.
But do it on your own time, with your own money.
I, for one, do not live in a nation whose government is authorized to dribble away taxpayers’ money trying to predict tomorrow’s weather or implementing grand schemes to avert those predictions. Point out the provision in the Constitution that allows for that!
But wait, the nation that actually recognized constraints on the government must have been that of my forefathers. Now, we live in Obama’s nation so I suppose we should all cheerfully get along with the plan. On the sunny side, at least we’re promised a job or two out of the agenda, misguided though it is.
Jeremy Hicks is a 2008 political science graduate, the founder of the Cal Poly Libertarian Club and a Mustang Daily politcal columnist.