As the credits roll, the human race embraces wholeheartedly the irrefutable truth about global warming, and irrevocably changes its consumptive path for good.
UH, NOT SO FAST…
Peter Huber has written a thought provoking piece in Forbes called, ‘The Carbon Curtain.’ It illuminates the climate versus energy policy paradox that exists on our planet.
Here is a bite sized assertion-based reasoning model on the core WHAT, WHY and SO WHATs of this topic.
CORE ASSERTION (EXCERPT): To judge by actions, not words, the carbon-warming view hasn't come close to persuading a political majority even in nations considered far more environmentally enlightened than China and India.
WHY IS THAT? (EXCERPT): In developing countries the political survival of the people at the top depends on providing affordable fuel for kitchens, farms, fertilizer plants, steel mills, highways and power plants. Oil and coal are the only practical fuels at hand.
SO WHAT? (EXCERPT): No serious student of global politics can accept the notion that the world will soon join ranks behind Brussels, Washington and the gloomy computer and its minders (Mark note: i.e., embrace new climate-friendly energy consumption policies).
Dar is surely right when he says, "The U.S. and Japan will not tell Asia and Africa to choose poverty, disease, hunger and illiteracy over electricity."
Adds Dar (Mark note: mockingly): "Contingency planning should entail strategic responses to a warming globe, a cooling globe and a globe whose climate reverberates with laughter at human hubris."
Netting it out: I have really come to believe that success and satisfaction in life is all about learning how to manage the many paradoxes that exist, and this is just another one of the those paradoxes.
Related Links:
- My blog post on 'the assertion-based reasoning model.' Think: well-formed, iterated answers to WHAT, WHY and SO WHAT questions.
- The Tyranny of the ‘All or None’: avoid getting locked into perpetual all or none dramas. Embrace the AND, and become more successful, be happier.
- On Intellectual Honesty: See things as they really are; act on that knowledge.
