Global warming: Too close to home
Which is scarier -- the economy or global warming? Climate change gets our vote, in part because it will be with us for decades to come. Full Story »
Posted by Derek HawkinsReview
Kudos to the P-I Editorial Board for taking a stand on behalf of the environment! They founded their opinion on alarming scientific observations of precipitous decline in mussel population of the northwest corner of Washington, and the implications for both the degree and rate of climate change.
The study would seem to add one more reason to hasten to control greenhouse gas emissions much more rapidly than politicians are inclined to do. But there are indications (hailed with bizarre glee in the sparsely populated corridors of global warming skeptics) that the troubled economy will cause politicians in many countries to pull back from job-creating investments in alternative energy, smarter transportation and carbon sequestration. There’s a real nightmare: letting the economy lead us into operating as if business as usual will solve climate change.
Economic issues ARE environmental issues, and vice versa. We need to develop a NASA-style federal program for alternative energy, to be free of fossil fuel use within ten years. THAT is where new economic growth will come from, rising from the dust of the old, unsustainable, slash-and-burn economy.
Climate change is one issue where the truly conservative approach is the only rational choice: We MUST behave as though the worst predictions of global catastrophe are true, and act accordingly. If we're wrong, we've lost nothing. If we're RIGHT, we just might survive.