Last week, President Bush had a meeting with delegates from the top 16 polluting countries of the world, which is pretty impressive in itself. I remember a time when the White House’s position on the subject was that of a conspiracy theorist. But the idea of the United States attending such a meeting far exceeded the actual productivity of it.
Bush expressed the United States’ official opinion, which is that economic growth can’t be sacrificed to reduce harmful emissions.
“Each nation must decide for itself the right mix of tools and technology to achieve results that are measurable and environmentally effective,” Bush told those attending the meeting. The basic Bush ideology here is that countries can regulate themselves.
This notion is pretty ridiculous, considering the origin of the global climate problem is that people couldn’t regulate themselves. And we’re supposed to trust the pro-big business regime of Bush to put pressure on his campaign contributors to limit CO2 emissions.
Forget all the political issues for a second. All of them. What’s the point of creating policy in the first place? We need to get back to the underlined meaning of it.Policies are made to create a better society. Local policies ensure our safety and satisfaction on a small scale, while national policy is intended to deal with larger, more dangerous issues. But the bottom line, any policy is supposed to ensure a better nation.
The global warming issue is conflictually based on present vs. future. To purely favor economic success is to focus only on our nation’s present. And to purely favor environment conservation is to focus only on our nation’s future.
Those opposing mentalities are innately different, with completely different consequences. But is one more important than the other?
Personally, I like money. But if everything on earth is dead, then it’s pretty useless.
But worry not; regardless of your stance on the issue, I have the solution for the global climate crisis. First of all, we have to recognize that global warming isn’t an American problem; it’s an earth problem. So if we just removed ourselves from the earth, then we don’t have to worry about it anymore.
Moving an entire country’s population to another planetary body is completely impractical, so I’m definitely not suggesting space travel. The solution lies in the 1998 feature film The Truman Show. I propose we create a structure that will completely cover and, more importantly, shield the United States from the deadly affects of global warming.
The structure would be a lot like a stadium dome. It would be clear, hard plastic. This way, the sun would still come through.
Sure, some critics would argue that since we release the most CO2 into the atmosphere, it would only take a few years to suffocate in our bubble. And sure, that might just create the largest greenhouse imaginable. Maybe, but you can’t solve every problem.
The point I’m attempting to make is that we can’t escape it. There’s no talking our way out of this. There’s no combination of words and phrases that will stop global warming. Politically, we live in a society that is unprepared for a situation such as this. Normally, if politicians are faced with a struggle or issue, they will just say the right thing. Our political climate is gloom and full of false promises. And in the typical situation, there is no right answer. Ultimately, whether we allow abortion or not, there isn’t a right answer. It’s a matter of opinion. Whether we form tougher laws on immigration, it’s just an opinion. And these issues don’t have extensional capabilities.
It’s really simple. With current emission levels, we have set in motion, and continue to contribute, to the death and discomfort of our children. This isn’t an opinion. It’s a fact that we have to actually see as a fact. If someone planted a bomb that wasn’t set to detonate until 50 years from now, it would still be murder.