The Global Warming Debate

The melting of the polar caps is a sign that Global Warming is occurring. Given that we may have a manmade CO2 problem, there is a need to work towards a solution. But environmentalism is tricky to implement; there are so many ways it can be done wrong; there are pitfalls to its implementation that you need to know about. There are also win-win ways to implement environmentalism that are good for everyone.

Basically, any environmental idea that when implemented, add beauty, efficiency, enhances quality of life and/or solves other problems represents a desirable approach to environmentalism and the easing of global warming. But solutions that create stress, anxiety, waste time, money, and productivity, and hinder our lives should be avoided as mistakes we don’t want to make. In the extreme, a heavy-handed environmental dictatorship that murders millions of CO2 generators is a possible future. Consider yourself warned.

The solution I recommend is relatively easy to implement. It is a viable, low tech first approach that anyone can do to lower CO2 levels. It comes out of science and it’s called photosynthesis. Simply put: plant trees. Trees absorb CO2 and give us O2. All plant life acts as a sink to carbon dioxide and removes it from the air. So how many trees should we plant? Covering the whole earth with trees and forcing mankind back into the jungle would be too many trees. In contrast, an occasional plastic tree in an office building would be too few. We need to balance the world’s industrial output of CO2 with enough trees, forest, and plant life to sink out the excess CO2. With a Federal tax credit, small gardens in office building, malls and factories would not only remove CO2 from the air, but would enhance beauty and quality of life for onlookers. Another benefit would be to create new jobs for gardeners and laborers (tree planters).

There is another idea that could alleviate some of the need to cut down trees for paper. It is very technical and not yet cost effective. By using polystyrene spheres as computer controlled pixels on flexible yet durable “video paper”, the pages would fill a computer shaped like a book. A stencil would allow writing on the “video paper”; the processor would interpret and convert it to a text file. These “Intelligent Interactive Books” would ease the need for paper, pens and pencils by storing non critical information electronically. It would be larger than hand held blackberries, but smaller and lighter than laptops. Obviously, some needs still require paper.

To pursue a harmony with the environment, I would recommend a gentle nudge of economic incentives and a voluntary cultural shift. Don’t buy house plants if you don’t want to. But when you are ready and want to become closer to nature, than bask in its gentle embrace and find your center. Plant trees or create a garden if you want to.

But there is a great danger on the horizon that is poised to derail, entangle and draw into a quagmire any Environmental strategy that is launched with the unrestrained hand of the Federal government, and forced down the throats of Americans and other nations. The delicate weave of industry and jobs makes it possible to survive and prosper in an uncertain economy. But to bluntly pile on “carbon taxes”, ethanol substitution, and “cap-and-trade” paperwork is to tear and break the fibers that tether us little folks to our jobs. A carbon tax removes money from the profitability margin, but does not produce or improve anything of noticeable significance. The legal requirement to substitute ethanol, produced from corn, drives up food prices and inadvertently worsens starvation. “Cap-and-trade” forces the endless accounting of every last liter of CO2; it burdens industries with more legal requirements to follow, but adds neither productivity nor improvement to quality of life. If we’re not knee deep in melted glacial waters, then we’re knee deep in IRS paperwork; which is worse? We need to be careful that the solutions that we try do not produce unintended consequences that are worse than the problem. We do not want to cure a headache with a hammer.

What about those who don’t believe in man made Global Warming? If you have to threaten nations and/or American citizens with force to get them to plant trees, then maybe the lesser of two evils is to be knee deep in water because the polar caps melted and the ocean level rose. But the absence of bad weather does not improve the governance of a “save the world” tyranny too expedient to observe human rights and liberties.

What about deforestation of the rainforests? What about the expansion of human civilization? It would be a terrible mistake to force a reduction in human population, to “trim the herd”, in order to “Save the Earth”. To believe that Environmentalism requires the death and destruction of humanity is to unknowingly argue that Adolph Hitler was an Environmentalist who destroyed factories and eliminated 60 million CO2 breathers. If harmony with nature cannot be achieved compassionately, with our values of human and civil right intact, with our freedom and democratic values upheld, then either we will repeat the holocaust or we will be admonished by the earth. The need for new wisdom is at hand.

To all of you who think that humanity is a scourge, a plague or something that will perish from the earth, you are wrong and your error filled belief is hereby cast into the volcanic furnace of creation, incinerated. Mother Nature is two billion years old and has made no mistake. Allow me to let you in on a secret; humanity is the product of the Divine and the biological. Right now it may not look like a pretty picture, but human civilization is only seven thousand years old and is still being forged in the furnace of creation, its purified and perfected nature has not yet been fully realized.