Here's to You, Mr. Robinson

(Originally written June 21, 2007)
Within the first 15 words of the 6/7/07 submission to the Editor (Keep the Global Warming Debate Open), Mr. Robinson said two agreeable things: there should be a continuing debate, and it is a social issue. So here’s to you, Mr. Robinson.

After that, the text provided an excellent start to this debate.

Let’s get Al Gore out of the way first. Refer to Time’s 5/28/07 article, “the Last Temptation of Al Gore.” He does fly regularly but predominantly via commercial air and as a result buys carbon offsets. He and his wife do drive SUVs, but both are hybrids. He does live in a mansion, a renovated, 1915 home (an idea – renovation and preservation – which has become taboo in our area) and pays 10x the average energy bill because the house is powered by completely renewable energy sources. And, it is neither a surprise, nor a dig, that he pledged not “use energy the same as the rest of us do,” because, quite frankly, we waste it.

Which introduces vital questions about our debate: are we debating global warming as a human-caused phenomenon or debating our society’s global responsibility?

To the first question: let’s assume, as you propose, the scientists we are blindly following on the evening news are 100% wrong and our carbon-dioxide producing society is not influencing the Earth’s inevitable warming. What other information do scientists have wrong? Does pollution really affect our health? Is coal power really dirty? Are oil reserves really going to disappear? Or, as claimed, is global warming another construction of the global citizenry to curb an American society which accounts for 6% of the world population yet consumes 40% of its resources?

Well, if the U.N. wanted to stop the world from having an influence on American society, they should start by blocking importation of electronics, furniture, clothes, and autos that define our extravagant lifestyle. But that’s a different debate. We still want all those things (because we’re American and we deserve them), we just want them for ourselves. It’s the biggest problem with the global warming debate: we rationalize it for our selfishness.

We don’t want our “pristine” beaches affected by contaminants from filthy geese, but we can’t keep our own feces and tampons out of the water. We complain about energy prices, but the homes we build consume twice the energy of those which formerly stood in their place. We ponder vanishing petroleum and rising costs as we sip our Poland Spring bottles and lament the dilemma facing Africans who can’t find clean drinking water.

Do you remember the anti-drug commercial with the famous line, “I learned it by watching you!”? How can we condemn China for using coal power even though our economy was built the same way? Maybe our cloudy mirror is hiding the truth.

What’s the debate, Mr. Robinson? Are we fighting for society (our “right” to waste in extravagance as the world wallows) or for humanity (our existence on the only known planet with sustainable life)?

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See Mr. Robinson's Rebuttal