Climate Change and Human Denial

Climate Change and Human Denial
An Essay in which the author remembers the ’ÄúTurn Around Decade’Äù

Climate Change, Global Warming’Äîthe new media buzz words or should I say, the ’Äúrecycled’Äù buzz words of the 80’Äôs. Those of us old enough will remember the 1980’Äôs, dubbed by geneticist David Suzuki as the ’ÄúTurn Around Decade’Äù or the decade in which we were supposed to put the brakes on the civilization’Äôs industrial juggernaut. By 1990, the big corporations and conservative governments said, ’ÄùLook, we’Äôre still here. You were just crying wolf!’Äù to which Dr. Suzuki replied, ’Äúremember in the parable, in the end the wolf really did come!’Äù

Finally, in the face of overwhelming evidence, some of the worlds most conservative thinkers, corporations, and governments are having to come out of denial about Global Warming. But merely embracing the notion that we humans are adversely affecting our climate and ultimately ourselves, still leaves us a long way from being OK.

Looking back on it, Suzuki was probably wrong. The real turn around decade was probably the 60’Äôs. By 2007, there is just so much wrong with the planet, and so little political will to make any meaningful changes, that outright catastrophe is the only option left. Sadly, if we are able to survive ourselves, much of the biodiversity in the world today will have disappeared. To underscore this notion, In an interview on CBC Radio on January 16th, a spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute stated that he expected current energy consumption trends to continue, adding that world consumption will be up 85% by 2030 with coal and gas making up most of the increase’Ķso much for Kyoto. Collectively, humanity is not smart enough to self regulate. We are simply not intellectually advanced enough to do what has to be done. We are technological lemmings heading for an abyss.

Ronald Wright, Author of a Short History of Progress stately it perfectly. Essentially, he suggests that we are really unchanged from the primitive hominid that crawled out of the forest 300,000 years ago. We are still primordially tribal, unable move beyond our basic need to accumulate more wealth and security than we need. We are base creatures unable to understand the power, complexity, and consequences of the technology we have developed. Coming to terms with the Global Warming problem will likely be humanity’Äôs ultimate test, after which we either graduate into the future able to control ourselves, or sink back towards our lowly origins in a horribly deprived state.