OPINION: Is the cost of environmentalism worth it?
Environmentalism is a luxury for the rich and spoiled. While Americans can pat themselves on the back for building wind farms and reducing carbon emissions, most countries don’t have that opportunity.
Currently, U.N. representatives from 191 countries are meeting in Durban, South Africa, to re-work the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The primary issue addressed by this environmental treaty is the emission of carbon dioxide — the evil greenhouse gas created by fossil fuels.
Many proposals have been set forth to reduce emissions, such as a cap-and-trade program in which a monetary price is set on pollution, and pledge-and-review programs in which countries promise to reduce or slow their emissions by a certain amount. But does the world really need another emissions reduction plan? No, it doesn’t. In fact, trying to save the environment by worrying about carbon emissions is largely a waste of time.
I don’t say this because I don’t believe in climate change, I say it because I don’t know if climate change is real and whether or not it’s a legitimate threat. I’m not the only one that’s ignorant, though, so are you and all of the top scientists in the world.
The theory of climate change has much merit. However, I’m not arrogant enough to confuse this belief with knowledge.
Any rational person who has studied climate change objectively will realize climatologists are still very much in the dark.
It’s true humans have increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. It is also true this coincides with a gradual rise in temperatures. Yet, many facts indicate this is either a coincidence or is insignificant.
Current climate models are horribly inaccurate because they cannot predict the impact of water vapor, which accounts for roughly 80 percent of the greenhouse effect.
Additionally, much of the recent warming may be due to settling particulate pollution generated in earlier decades that has been cooling the globe.
Carbon dioxide also yields diminishing returns as a greenhouse gas, meaning the more you put into the atmosphere, the less of an effect it has.
The simple fact about climate change is that we just don’t know. Even so, environmentalists claim we should prepare for the worst. There are several reasons we shouldn’t.
Imposing carbon-emission standards as precaution would doom developing countries to poverty. Economic growth depends on the efficiency and cheapness of fossil fuels.
Even if only affluent nations decided to cut their emissions it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Assuming climate change truly is a problem, green energy and hybrid vehicles are insignificant blips on the radar.
While I appreciate healthy environments, the notion we can reduce our emissions and save the planet is ludicrous. Significantly reducing emissions may not have an impact for another 100 years — well beyond the time frame of doomsday climatologists.
The time for saving the world has long passed.
So what should we be discussing instead of programs that sentence developing nations to poverty and invest trillions in a potentially non-existent problem that will be too late to change anyway? Geoengineering.
Geoengineering is large-scale manipulation of the earth’s climate through science. Finding ways to control the climate by manipulating stratospheric levels of sulfur dioxide, atmospheric levels of water vapor and creating artificial clouds are cheap, simple solutions.
While it’s not terribly popular with environmentalists, geoengineering is the most cost effective and realistic solution to global warming.
Perhaps, the only downside is that environmentalists who adopted climate change as their religion may need to find a new hobby. Tragic, but a sacrifice I’m willing to make.