Thanks to Susan Andrew for the rebuttal to Michael Ivey’s letter [“‘Man-Made Global Warming,” Dec. 1 Xpress]. The vast majority of researchers agree that the human impact on our ecosystem is undeniable.
Al Gore makes a strong point: With global population pushing seven billion, there might be a billion of us daily clawing away at coal fields with gigantic shovels, stripping forests with high-tech rolling saws, denuding the hills for firewood, driving more cars and extracting more petroleum than ever before. We are consuming electric power to run air conditioners, TVs and factories in places that previously have never seen them. How can we think this would not have an impact? …
Where, then, does the vehement denial come from? Progressives need to “grok” the mindset behind this refusal. Some have absorbed American Exceptionalism into their very being. Reared in suburban, mall-cruising, upper-middle-class families, they have enjoyed living large and simply cannot fathom scaling back.
Others, the “wannabe” crowd, are striving to get there. The 6,000-square-foot house with three SUVs is baseline. All us hippies (old and young) and anti-growth, Obama-voting idealists are getting in the way with our crazy talk of limits and extinction. Any criticism of our shop-til-you-drop culture is taken as heresy.
Fewer and fewer Americans travel to other countries to witness how more mature economies are tackling these issues. Canadians, Europeans and others are labeled as simply jealous of our “freedom” to pilot 8-mpg monster trucks 30 miles to the nearest Walmart. It’s high time to call them out on it and clear the air.
— Larry Abbott
Asheville
Larry Abbott have a cel phone? A big tv? A car? He can be the first to sacrifice—especially the energy sucking cel phone.
Al Gore makes a strong point:
But will he sacrifice his Gulfstream?
what a kook.
makes our resident warmistas seem downright reasonable 😉
Yeh, that’s about right. You often see humvees parked at WalMart. As far as extinction and wannabees, …….I know hippies. Hippies are good friends of mine. Real hippies are disillusioned by their legacy. I have a cousin nearby, now that he’s climbed down from his mountainous commune in Cali. He lights up, plays me songs about Jesus, and I bring beer that he doesn’t drink. The fascists today that call themselves hippies are in no manner a resemblance to the hippies of yesteryear. They are simply a product of them. Much like a benign wormish creature to venomous fly.
More impact than with less population? Well, it doesn’t take an Einstein to work that out. More impact being a bad thing? Totally different story.
They(conveniently) forgot to quantify that impact, particularly in America. Our forests are thriving. A coal fired power plant, and a coal mine to supply it have a very small footprint of impact on the surface. Visit the coal mines of the west, and you’ll see that 50 years later, you may have trouble finding the entrance. Compare to any third world society scouring and stripping the area for miles around taking every scrap that will burn, huddled about a cloud of particulates and carcinogens.
When our very rich aristocrats like Al Gore and James Cameron start making real sacrafices, I might start paying attention. This is a guilt trip for us little guys who have had to struggle just to get by.
But Canadians drive big trucks and usually drive even further to WalMart… didn’t Al Gore explain that?
The original hippies would actually fall somewhere between libertarians and the tea parties, it is progressives who (as they do) corrupted the meaning of the movement:
http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2010/10/11/the-electric-tea-party-acid-test/?singlepage=true
Also, there is nothing that made me appreciate America’s exceptionalism more than traveling overseas. I would not trade our individual liberties for “more mature” countries such as Egypt (which is dubbed “The Land of Civilization”). The capitalism we are so proud of does not lead to people waiting in long lines for government-subsidized pita bread (and only that because they know anything less would cause revolt). Rather our relative economic freedom spawns prosperity and that wealth allows us to live cleaner and healthier lives, with lower levels of real pollution. Cairo is filthy, worse than any of our cities (I still found San Francisco to be pretty dirty, but not nearly that bad). It is a good thing they are so much more advanced.
Hey Larry
These mature economies in Europe you allude to.
Would they include Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland & Portugal?
And let’s not forget the UK, France & Iceland either
You noted of course the LCMs of enormous public debt, collapsing currency, appalling unemployment and enormous subsidies in clean green renewable energy I hope, and you didn’t fail to note that even the Serbs are all set to bail out of the Euro with Ms Merkels gang either
There is no such thing as “man made global warming” just as there wasn’t man made global cooling back in the 70’s. When you confine/limit your event horizon to 30 years (or less) on a planet which is 4,700,000,000 years old, is radiated by variable outputs from a local star, is heated internally by radioactive decay, has liquid water which is dragged holus bolus by the gravity of a companion satellite plus a couple of enormous planets, and has internal convection of multiple magma regions; climate change is simply the weather generated by a manifestation of the PDO.
Please try to listen, try harder to understand & copy.
These fleeting outcomes will continue to come and go on a regular 30 – 40 year cycle for as long as the continents continue to funnel deep oceans from the Arctic to the Antarctic
It’s all to do with the PDO, not some pissant trace gas which accounts for 0.039% of the atmosphere.
The guy considers Al Gore credible and an inspiration for living a less materialistic life.
He’s actually used the term “grok” in a sentence. Wow! Even at the time it was invented it was owned by progressive left. Well I recommend to Mr Abbott that he not read “The Day After Tomorrow” or “Starship Troopers” in case his head explodes.