It’s everywhere. Smog is in the air we breathe. Toxins saturate the meat we eat. Apocalyptic images haunt every corner of the modern mind: noxious greenhouse gases, triple-digit gas prices, dead polar bear carcasses piling up in our Northern seas. The world is coming to an end, and all life on it is doomed.
Yes, dear Chicken Little, the sky is falling. Science told us so.
But can we really trust these science types? They can’t even tell us the five Ws of the apparently impending enviro-apocalypse. If you believe the hype spewed by Nicholas Stern and his ilk, catastrophic weather anomalies, rising sea levels, and the heart-breaking extinction of species could worsen and may result in shocking death tolls over the next few years.
Or so they say.
Someone still needs to determine, in no uncertain terms, where, when, why and on top of whom the sky will come crashing. So far, no one has.
How can we trust the august institutions of science if they can’t even answer these basic questions? Perhaps they’re just as wishy-washy about whether humanity is even to blame for climate change in the first place. Should we listen to the esteemed scientists if they, too, have a political agenda to shove down our throats?
It is far easier to write off the warnings as speculation, biased science, and biased journalism. So why shouldn’t we? Living with the status quo is pleasant for us here in Toronto, and there are certain bubbles we are loath to burst. After all, turning off a lamp in your home won’t really save a drowning polar bear, right? We can take comfort in promising ourselves that next time, we’ll do something bigger and better to save the world, some vague thing that will really make a difference-after we finish off our 24-oz. steak dinners, that is.
It’s a curious quirk of human nature that, when the media is suffocating us in self-important climate news, we get desensitized. We sicken at the next “investigative report of The Absolute Truth.” We shy away from “old” news and move toward “new” news. When the “new” news repeats old material, logically, we change the channel.
One conclusion we’re continually brought back to is that modern human lifestyles are simply not conducive to a green earth. Maybe the natural world would be better off without humankind parasitizing its natural resources. But realistically, there’s not very much even the greenest of the green can do to curb climate change from the comforts of a Canadian home.
If the only way to reverse the effects of climate change is to overhaul the way the modern world works-industry, manufacturing, agriculture, government-then it’s far too big a problem for a single person to make a real difference. We might as well leave caring about such things to Al Gore, Richard Branson, and other important people, while we enjoy the sun-filled days under the leafy palm trees that will surely sprout in Toronto. A warmer climate really would be nice for us, and if India gets swept away by floods and droughts, well, too bad.
So carpe diem! If you find hot water, T-bone steaks, and incandescent lighting essential to your livelihood, you should exploit those amenities while they last.
Someone will suffer the consequences, but clearly it won’t be you.
