Friday, July 18, 2008

I am having a Green moment, the end of the world must be near

I am a simple woman, and, like the vast majority of the world's population, don't know shit about climatology. I really don't know to what extent the world's temperatures are rising in the long term, and how much of it is caused by human activity and carbon emissions. As far as I can see, most scientists who study the issue say that the temperatures are rising and human activity is a significant contributing factor, some say otherwise, nobody is quite sure of the extent of it, and the whole issue is intensely political.

I do, however, usually know a religion when I see it, and I can plainly see that many people are using global warming as a religion, some as the kind of religion that says that everything they do is sinful and they need to atone for it, most as the kind of religion that says that everything their neighbors are doing is sinful, and gives them unlimited license to disapprove of those neighbors.

Not that this is ultimately the fault of the global warming, mind you, or even the related science and politics. I am sure that if tomorrow the scientists proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the world is in fact cooling, or staying the same, most of those people would find some other reason to disapprove of the neighbors. The global warming movement has made disapproving of other human beings just for the living disturbingly mainstream and disgustingly socially acceptable, but many people's tendency to look for any excuse to disapprove of the neighbors is much older (original sin, anyone?).

I also tend to know bullshit when I see it, at least when there is a huge steaming pile of it. I don't even mean the kind of politician who makes his career out of global warming, flies everywhere on a private jet and has a home that consumes 20 times as much electricity as an average American home. This is just, you know, politicians being politicians. I mean the kind of politicians who sound totally convinced that the global warming is the most urgent and horrible thing threatening the humankind, and at the same time snub their noses at the most obvious though not totally perfect solution: the nuclear power.

Let me see: they consider the global warming to be a major and imminent disaster caused mainly by carbon emissions, they know that nuclear power produces a lot less carbon emissions, and they consider building more nuclear power plants to be an unworthy solution because, let's see:

a) disposal of nuclear waste is an issue (a major and imminent disaster kind of issue?),
b) nuclear power plants can be attacked by terrorists (doesn't it make terrorists an issue, rather than nuclear power plants? and aren't they reasonably well protected?),
c) building nuclear power plants leads to nuclear proliferation (because, I guess, the USA, Russia, China and India totally need a new nuclear reactor to get hold of some nukes? oops, they already have some... or because Finland will make nukes as soon as they build another nuclear power plant? yep, that must be it),
d) nuclear power plants are expensive (as opposed to the consequences of global warming?).

Are those politicians totally stupid, or do they think that their voters are? In either case, why would anyone who cares about global warming, or even anyone who doesn't, vote for them?

I have decided to participate in the fight against global warming by not voting for any politicians who are against nuclear power, and also not voting for any politicians who claim to care about global warming and are undecided on nuclear power. I also promise to highly disapprove of any of my neighbors who fail to do the same.

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