Here what doesn't make any sense to me. The basic measures that believers in climate change are proposing to deal with climate change need to happen even if it turns out there is no such thing as climate change. We need cleaner air and water. We need reduce and eventually eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels.
Why? Well, for starters all of the major fossil fuels - coal, oil, and uranium -- are finite resources that won't last forever. And as we have seen with oil, sooner or later "forever" comes to an end.
In country after country, the level of oil production is declining and what oil is extracted is harder and more expensive to attain. The same sequence is inevitable with coal and uranium. Why go down that road when we already know it will lead to a dead end?
Another reason to stop using fossil fuels is the environmental consequences of extracting and consuming these resources is very high. Whether you look at air pollution, water pollution, mountaintop removal, or storage of nuclear waste you find major concerns and massive hidden costs.
Given all that, you would think that climate change would be the deal clincher, the tipping point for a massive spurt of change. Instead, the issue of climate change has become a central point in the argument against rushing into a future without dirty fossil fuels such as coal or oil.
Faced with the inevitability of change, some argue even stronger for keeping things the way they are for as long as possible, extracting every last drop of oil, every last piece of coal no matter what the cost to the environment.
Like I said, it doesn't make any sense to me. Of course, it makes perfect sense to those who have a vested interest in deferring the future expense (and benefit) of going to greener and cleaner methods of energy in favor of squeezing every last nickel of profit today.
You have to wonder if any of this will make sense to our grandchildren.
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