To all my Tree Huggers out there

In this era of modern global understanding, we struggle to make what is mankind’s future an object that can be manipulated by the mankind of today. While a decade ago analysts were predicting trends, incorrectly, five or ten years from then, the experts of today have dared to appraise the world’s condition a hundred years from now. I believe it is incredibly naïve to state that the environment will be the most important issue of the 21st century. I make this my own assertion because the modern environmentalist movement lacks enough historical experience, scientific evidence, and understanding of global politics to make a judgment so far into the future. As far as the point that individual actions can make a difference in terms of the environment, I believe that actions such as driving non-hybrid cars, failing to recycle, or leaving the lights on at night contribute no more to rising ocean levels than if an environmentalist were to urinate into the ocean themselves.

I believe that while the earth may be warming, cooling, growing, shrinking, or liquefying, mankind in all of its magnificence is not in any position to have caused any of this, nor is it in any position to stop it. Any climatologist will admit that the planet has been in a constant state of change since its formation. We have only just begun to create technology capable of studying the atmosphere we reside in, much less alter it. Most climate data is currently based on changes in temperature over the past hundred years. To a human being this data may seem like quite a bit of information, but only because a hundred years is past our average life expectancy. To a planet that that has existed for over 4.55 billion years, a hundred years of questionable climate data is merely an instantaneous calculation. Like any change, it must be analyzed over a long period of time before it can be predicted. If you were to ask a person in the 1960’s what they believed their future a hundred years from then to be like, they would have predicted a world decimated by nuclear fallout and destruction. A person in the 1970’s would have explained to you how the world would soon enter into a new ice age. Each of these examples reflects the effects of propaganda upon the public. If the media tells the common people that there will be a flood, then they will prepare for it regardless of common sense. Therefore, if they are told that the earth is warming up and it is their fault, they will blindly give into this pointless guilt. The truth is that no single person can conclusively say that we have initiated some sort of climate change, and that this has nothing to do with whether or not it dominates the issues of modern human politics. Politics, like law, has evolved through the years to the point at which it has lost most connection previously held with the real world. This means that the fact that something such as the environment is dominating politics does not make it the most important issue for mankind. In the world we live in, there are more trees in North America than ever existed historically, increased CO2 concentrations are helping to grow plant life in the wasteland of the Sahara dessert, the number one “greenhouse gas” in the atmosphere is commonly known as water vapor, clouds, and the overall temperature of the earth might have risen a little over six tenths of a degree Celsius in a hundred years. Those who are cleverly predicting the coming of the apocalypse are also conveniently in the market to make money from it. I suppose since money “makes the world go round” they intend to save the planet by accumulating it. As for the next century, most human minds are probably going to be dominated by thoughts of finances or family matters in the coming years, not how their transportation is affecting the mood of polar bears thousands of miles from them.

In the broader scheme of things I believe that issues over the environment will eventually fall along with the many other panic headlines mankind has endured throughout its history. From the days in which we feared alien invasion, to when every computer on the planet was supposed to crash because of the all-too-soon forgotten Y2K virus, mankind has nothing to fear but fear itself.

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