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June 4, 2006
From Joel Achenbach's feature in the Washington Post's weekly magazine on the global warming skeptics. These are the crowd who hold that 'global warming isn't really happening -- or, if it is happening, isn't happening because of human beings. Or, if it is happening because of human beings, isn't going to be a big problem. And, even if it is a big problem, we can't realistically do anything about it other than adapt.' Behind this crowd stands the fossil fuel energy industry, which has a financial stake in opposing policies and actions that seek to combat climate change.
Rather than evaluate any of the claims of global warming skeptics. Achenbach interviews the sceptics, lets them speak for themselves, and lets the readers draw their own conclusion. The sceptics come across poorly.
In the process of allowing the sceptics to hang themselves Achenbach makes the following comment:
Let us be honest about the intellectual culture of America in general: It has become almost impossible to have an intelligent discussion about anything. Everything is a war now. This is the age of lethal verbal combat, where even scientific issues involving measurements and molecules are somehow supernaturally polarizing. The controversy about global warming resides all too perfectly at the collision point of environmentalism and free market capitalism. It's bound to be not only politicized but twisted, mangled and beaten senseless in the process. The divisive nature of global warming isn't helped by the fact that the most powerful global-warming skeptic (at least by reputation) is President Bush, and the loudest warnings come from Al Gore.
Strikes me as pretty accurate account from the bits of American politics that I dip into.
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In the US this issue is more than just about global warming, it’s about the survival of American suburban culture. With the provision of public transport being uneconomical, suburbia has always been dependent on private transportation, namely the car.
Behind the scenes in today’s America, intellectuals are arguing about whether suburbia can be sustained in its present form, and for how long. From the left comes the argument that suburbia is a social experiment gone wrong; the sprawl, energy waste, traffic, road rage, pollution and strong dependency on petroleum. The right argue that suburbia has progressed to far, trillions of dollars of investment cannot be written off, suburbia must be sustained at all costs.
The issue is made more complex in that corporate America also has a big stake in suburbia. Auto, petroleum, fast food, construction and retail industries have grown enormously on the back of suburban sprawl. With 85-90% of Americans and Australians living in suburbia, how will they travel to the Mc Donalds’, Hungry Jack’s or mega shopping malls without affordable private transportation?
In the future, the affluent in our society will be able to afford petrol at $5 litre and $10 motorway tolls, but what about the not so affluent. Maybe we're all hoping that future advancements in technology will save the day.