2008-01-02

Happy New Year, The World Isn't Ending. Yet.

Some rational words and sensibility to usher in 2008:

"Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

...

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. When the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored. A large part of Antarctica has been cooling recently, but most coverage of that continent has focused on one small part that has warmed."

The danger in trumpeting climate change as the end of the world as we know it, and the more measured response is that opportunities for real change can get lost. Finding a substitute for oil would have a tremendous impact on our world and it's something we should be spending more time and energy in doing.

Remember the rain forest? Famine in Ethiopia? AIDS? Rabid cyborg monkey attacks? All were problems, or 'issues' that the media 'raised awareness' about and once some stop gap measures were put in place (A Sting concert, Dan Ackroyd singing, Magic Johnson on Oprah, time travelling mongooses from a future that never was) the public forgot about it and moved on, focusing our attention to the truly important: Weekly NFL picks and Lindsay Lohan's crotch.


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