ERD:
I’m back and less prone to babbling today. I hope.
You said this the other day:
That is not to say we don't have serious problems today, but let's not view the past in rosy-colored revisionist-history glasses. Things are *so much* better today!
And yes, I do think that we need to look at Global Warming and pollution as separate (but often inter-twined) issues. I'll throw this one out again: We can sequester the CO2 from coal plants, but... the coal plant will use 30% more coal. Hmmm, we aren't quite sure how much that reduction of CO2 will mitigate global warming, but we do know that 30% more coal mining means more destruction of forests, more run-off, more loss of habitat, etc. I think it's important to understand which of those is the 'right' thing to do. That is not the same as doing nothing.
My pre-argument:
A few months back while staring at Fidel Castro on the wall, the DW and I were discussing the state of health care in this country. We both know the real solution to the problem: just do more of what the doctors (experts?) tell you and less of what the advertisers tell you. A very simple solution. For example, if the doctor says eat less meat and after a few months you probably can get off that Lipitor stuff, you should do it; or if he says lose a bit of weight and eat less salt and you probably can get off that high blood pressure medication, you should try to do that too. If one just did these little things, life could be much better, more vibrant, freer (less burdensome and costly). And over time folks would start having much better life endings also, with fewer complications arising as one aged, fewer mad dashes by the kids to bedsides, etc, etc, etc. Life would improve enormously and would probably cost far less. And after 10-20 years, my guess is that health care expenses may drop by up to 50%--but maybe not exactly that much. This to me, anyway, is what real freedom is all about, at least as related to my own personal life: living a life less burdened by health problems so that my options are always greater, less dependent upon my lack of health and more contingent upon my good health.
Analogously, I see way too much argument about whether a Ford is better or worse than a Chevy, and far too little about how if my health was just a little bit better, I could just walk to California. This car argument over and over again is mildly superficial to my mind (although Hondas are much better than Chevys
). Real freedom is oftentimes different that we initially imagine—or fight for, 'more better' than just having lower taxes and more money.
The Argument:
Yes things are better today--kinda. But it is more like “things are slightly different now.” We have cleaned up a lot of the old health and sanitation problems. We’ve stopped lots of diseases; we’ve cleaned up much of the grosser car pollution, etc. All good things. And we’ve done a great deal of environmental clean up in this country and passed lots of good laws that make things much, much better and make sure that it’s easy to do those chores and recycling. And we should all be very happy and proud that we all helped and created a gov’t that made these things possible . . . but now we need to step up and do more because not doing things may have very grave consequences for all and especially for our children and grandchildren.
We have a serious global warming problem—or so the vast majority of experts say. (And I defer to them, the major scientists, not the crackpot ones on the periphery of the issue).
The easiest argument to make is to just say “Let’s wait until all the evidence is in before we make a decision.” Or as our current president does (and others in the past too), we can just defer the tough decisions to the future. We have debt/bankruptcy issues among individuals because they defer the decisions to stop spending and borrowings. Our gov’t uses the exact same deferral process as individuals use, the latest being deferring the cost of our current war and lowered taxes so that it’s paid off by others, our children and grandchildren. It is basically the same sort of argument I see some conservative types make on this thread and many others.
Finally, you made a comment above about coal plants and sequestering CO2, laying out a real life problem that exists today. All true as far as I can see. But . . . a partial solution lays in Canada
. I believe they recently passed a law that mandates no more retail incandescent lights will be sold there in the near future. Their gov’t will require everyone use floros. I read somewhere right after this law was passed that if we did the same in this country, we could build ten fewer coal-fired electrical plants each year. Wow! Nice! Poof, the problems spewing from ten plants eliminated before they’re even built. It’s like building a healthy body by doing things right in the first place, rather than treating it with Lipitor after the fact. Your CO2 argument never even makes it to first base in this context.
Windmill energy is good too, and like good, healthy behaviors developed early in life, windmill energy and other clean energy creation methods create good behaviors and prevent bad consequences from developing at a later time. This is a good thing. In fact, it may actually be well worth some extra subsidies (just as we train, expend time, effort, and money, so that our children learn to eat better) now, to prevent the bad stuff from happening later. Ask any doctor or scientist, they’ll probably tell you it’s better to solve a problem early rather than later.
Plus, floro lights actually save more electricity over their life than they initial cost. Now we need to explain to the Chinese (and help them?), that having a healthy environment actually saves them from having huge health bills and costs in the future—that they don’t have to lead superficial lives that revolve solely around accumulating money and reducing taxes and giving rise to poorer choices revolving around crappy end game pills and medicines.
[FONT="]I better quit right now
before um . . . well you know. [/FONT]
). 
