Finished reading a book recently called Inevitable Surprises, given to me by a friend who reluctantly read it for school.
The gist of the book, which I gather is the pretext to a risk management subject, is that based on current information, certain things are bound to happen (or not likely to go away).
For example, it suggests that new diseases ala SARS and avian flu are just the tip of the iceberg. A whole new plethora of viruses and diseases still unknown to us are slowly making their way into the general population as we speak. Terrorism is not likely to subside as a medium of warfare.
Which started me thinking about a train of thought I had before. And I know this is probably political sacrilege in our present environment (excuse the pun) "but what is so bad about climate change ?"
The issue I have with "climate change" is that it implies that nature intended everything to remain status quo. True. Animals are dying and becoming extinct but while we pollute and concrete-ize what was once our lush forest home, we're actually forcing other creatures to adapt to the new environment we've created or fostering those that thrive in built-up landscapes (i.e. ants, racoons, cockroaches, flies). I'm sure there's a new species mutating the exact split second that i'm typing this. And there's another one right now.
Before you go further, I recognise that there is an inherent paradox where on one hand, we have an inbuilt desire to shape the environment to suit us, but on the other hand, we feel guilty when we as a species, start affecting other species with that same desire.
Having said that, I don't think climate change is really the issue, but rather the speed at which we're causing it to change.
Earth has had ice ages before and guess what. We'll have it again. Inevitable surprise. The way I see it, at some point, mankind will either be severly decimated by a massive, fast spreading disease, or our ignorance or sheer unwillingness to bother will merely ring in the next ice age and make the earth unsustainble for such large numbers of humans.
So while I'm not advocating for polluters and whalers to go around speeding up the 'un-greening' of earth, I don't think the argument is being presented properly.
Maybe if i was granted 20 seconds of omnipotence, I'd say to each human being on earth: "Look, this is how it works - For that five minutes of your comfort, you're reducing our species' lifetime by 10 minutes. Sure, it's not going to affect you, but if you're willing to consider your impact on others, even generations unborn, maybe think twice about turning on your air conditioning or taking a drive, just for the fun of it."
Consider yourself spoken to.
