On Climate Change / Global Warming

I’ve always found it interesting that some people chose to refute global warming. They usually state that the Earth is too big for human beings to have an impact on it, and that the Earth naturally undergoes cycles of warming and cooling (which is probably true regardless of human impact).

Nevertheless, I feel, such arguments smack the face of conventional wisdom and common sense: even if we, as a whole, did have no impact on our global environment, and even if the earth supposedly is doing just fine, we know from experience, all of us, that anything we do has an impact on our immediate environment.

That much is clear… we know that our trash does not decompose overnight, that it decomposes into our soils and groundwaters, and that it contains substances that are toxic to most life forms, including ourselves. We know that running a car in our garage makes us sick if we inhale the fumes; then how should it be different when we’re driving on an inner-city street?

It doesn’t take a scientist to know these things, and yet we go about as if what we do has no effect on our environment. Everything we do, will have some effect down the line. It wouldn’t be too far off, I presume, to opine that those people who oppose even considering whether or not we are responsible for global warming in general might also have lost sight of the effect that their life has on the more immediate environment as well.

Abating the effects of global warming could be as simple as having fewer needs/desires, and/or choosing wisely which products to select when fulfilling those desires (biodegradable, nontoxic, etc). A vegetarian diet also has a tremendous impact: cattle (incidentally also a large producer of the greenhouse gas methane, farts and all) require enormous areas of land and resources. Next time you eat meat, remember that chances are they cut down a part of the Brazilian rainforest the size of a stadium to create grazing areas for the cow whose hind leg you might now be eating (whether as a burger at MacDonald's or as a boeuf bourguignon at a 5 star hotel).

Since I live out in the country, I don’t have the convenience of a weekly trash pickup, which turns out to be a great blessing for the environment as it additionally encourages me not to be wasteful. And so I felt quite a bit of satisfaction after I took my two trash cans plus recyclables out to the dumpster for the first time in 4 months.

© 2009 Martin Adams. All Rights Reserved. http://www.MartinAdams.com This work may be shared and distributed for non-commercial purposes as long as the work and this copyright notice is left intact in its entirety. For commercial uses, please contact the author.