No, I'm going to suggest that the United States furnishes many other countries with grain which is grown using both fertalizers and insecticides and is reaped and sprayed using various gas powered equipment. This does not even include the tranportation of the afore mentioned.
Indeed! We do good things! No question. The key differentiator is that along with all the
good we do, we, as all humans must, need to be mindful of our
wasteful ways.
We are the richest and most powerful country this planet has ever seen. And, in many ways, we are the most wasteful. Sure we live "spread out", but that doesn't excuse people who simply
have to have a vehicle that gets <10mpg and who use it to drive to and from work and the grocery store and the mall.
But in the end, it doesn't matter how many
good applications of fossil fuels there are out there, the fact that the application of these fossil fuels is a dangerous game regardless of the good it does or the evil it does, means
everyone has to use it carefully.
Here's an example. My old organic geochem teacher used to talk about how they used to clean their hands in benzene back when he was young (about the mid Pliocene). They didn't know it was that bad then. But later information came out it is not only good at cleaning some things, it is also
very good at causing cancer. So people stopped using it to wash their hands! There were plenty of other alternatives to be found. Gradually even in the lab, in experiments, unless there was a really compelling
need for benzene to be used, alternative solvents could be found.
The difference here with global climate change is that we have now been told that we face a real danger from the overuse of a material. And there are people who still want to keep using it to the extent they always have. They want to keep washing their hands in the bad solvent.
The big difference here is, the changes right now are subtle and may not fully express until many of us over the age of 40 are dead.
So, if you were 80 years old and you knew you'd never have to see your grandkid suffer from the horrors of cancer, would you go right ahead and wash him in benzene?
In this case it is up to
us to take responsibility for our current actions and
work to ameliorate the problem before it is too late.
That sounds alarmist, I know. But look at what the models say, what the vast majority of scientists who specialize in this field say, and
what is at stake if we don't act quickly.
Is there still uncertainty? Oh yeah! No doubt. But again, if it is so hard to take responsibility for our actions (and remember, the only people we can change are ourselves), then what are we doing? What value do we have as the most powerful country on the planet?
I understand the "conservative" point of view on this. It will be expensive and many social and political conservatives love their money too much to part with it for something that they may not see as an immediate benefit. I understand that many conservatives want to get as much as they can as fast as they can and unless the bridge is crumbling under them they will assume "status quo".
This is, however, directly in the quivver of the usual "social conservative" message of
personal responsibility. As a nation we have to act. If we want to be that light on a hill, we can't be burning everything in sight just make ourselves brighter. If we want the world to change for its own good,
we have to change for our own good.
Who better? We're rich and (with some obvious exceptions) have some of the brightest people on the planet! We have the ability and the "bandwidth" to make the new technologies that will help everyone.
There is also the oil used to fuel planes, warships, etc., to help protect the US from the rest of the world's jealousy and indiscretion.
Maybe, just maybe, (and this is a totally unrelated topic), if we stopped thinking of the rest of the world as always "jealous and indescrete", and rather as our fellow travellers on this planet, our only home, we might not have to "defend" so much.
Not being a "Christian" nation, one can hardly expect GOD to protect the US free of charge...
We aren't a "christian nation". We are a pluralistic nation of many people who get along quite well. That should make us capable of getting along with the rest of the world quite well. It certainly should open our eyes to how the rest of the world sees us.
I'm proud to be an American. I know we are better than we present ourselves. And I know we can be better still.
