Global Warming – Somewhere between THE truth and YOUR truth, is Denial

Some say that the truth is subjective. Many of us refuse to accept certain truths based on our stations in life, our ethics and our morals.

Editorial by Adam Shake

Many of us refuse to accept certain truths because we are emotionally or financially vested in them being fallacies. (Like a coal exec. refusing to believe that clean coal is real.)

Many of us refuse to accept  certain truths because the reality is just to painful to acknowledge. (Global Warming is real, its man made and we are leaving our children and grandchildren an unhealthy, unsustainable, polluted legacy, and it’s our fault)

There is the truth, there is your truth and there is denial.

We live in a “me” world. We live in a world of Deniers. Holocaust deniers, round earth deniers, moon landing deniers, fast food is bad for you deniers, global warming deniers, the list goes on and on. Some people will go so far as to say that “In MY world…”

So what happens when people who are vested in a high carbon lifestyle are confronted with the truth? What happens when people care more about their SUV than they do about you and me or their own children? What happens when people who have health care insurance don’t want to help fund other peoples insurance? (And many of these people are on Medicaid and Medicare by the way.) They become angry.

Why do deniers become angry? One reason is that psychologically speaking, it’s easier to be angry, than it is to be wrong. To admit you are wrong is to either accept that you are wrong and then change, OR wake up every morning, look in the mirror and think “I’m a piece of shit.”  It’s much easier to just be angry.

The other reason is that most anger is a result of being scared. It’s the fight or flight response to danger. We don’t have wild animals that we need to either run away from or attack. Instead we have the truth, which is contrary to our happiness and the way we want the world to be.

Some people say that excess CO2 is a good thing, because CO2 is nothing but plant food.

People say that we will never run out of water because 2/3rds of the world is covered in it. (Less than 2% of the worlds water is drinkable and less than .oo2% is readily obtainable)

People say that we can’t switch to renewable energy overnight, so why should we even try.

People say that growing corn for fuel is an option, when the truth is that it takes away from the planetary food bank and drives up the cost of food. (There are only so many acres of dirt on the planet and burning down the Amazon for more is not an option.)

People say “My kids are smart, they will figure it out.”

People say that climate change is cyclical, ignoring the fact that we should be in a cooling trend, not a warming trend.

The jury is not still out.

There are no huge volcanoes going off, raising CO2 levels.

Yes the arctic re-freezes every year, but to a much less extent years previous.

Yes we can pump coal plant CO2 into the ground, but we’ll need to burn 3 times as much coal to do it.

Yes Nuclear is an option, if we are willing to make Uranium the next foreign fuel, and run out of it in 20 years.

Drilling in Alaska is an option too, but not if you think it will replace Saudi oil. ANWR will can only provide less than 2% of our oil needs.

Canadian tar sands? It takes 2 pints of natural gas to produce 1 pint of oil.

I say wake up! This is not your world. This is not my world. This is our world. We all have an impact. Quite making excuses for yourself.

This is about WE. This is not about YOU.

My vested interest in this subject is making the world a better place for all of us. What’s yours?

photo credit: Burbtimes

Related posts:

1. The Global Warming Debate is Over
2. German Chancellor says Take Down Those Walls of Global Warming!
3. We Must Start Adapting Now, to the Manifestations of Global Warming in the Future