The title sounds like the title of one of those three-years-behind-the-curve books that Thomas Friedman keeps writing, doesn't it? Probably that will be the title of his next one (go for it Tom, I'll be glad to lend it to you). But seriously, I want to address several aspects of the misinformation and misunderstanding that infests our current public discussion of climate change and environmental factors. Today, specifically, how technology might avert some of the catastrophes being predicted.
Anne Applebaum suggests in "Anti-climate-change, Anti-human" that all the talk coming out of the Copenhagen conference about the end of the world is alarmist exaggeration because it ignores the human factor. We humans, she says, are intelligent and adaptable and will surely come up with solutions to little nuisances like rising sea levels, or water shortages that threaten crops and populations. Along the way, Applebaum commits her own alarmist exaggeration by insanely distorting the meaning of some statistics produced by the Optimum Population Trust, but that doesn't detract from her main argument, that mankind's ingenuity will save us from having to worry.
Also, I like that in trying to strike down "alarmism," she concedes what others do not, i.e., that the problems we face are man-made. Her examples of human ingenuity of the past laud human innovations - like electrical power, for example - that are a cause of the issues we now face. And, she sees that solutions will have to come from human innovation; if "climate change" were not manmade, why wouldn't we just sit around and wait for nature to improve things for us?
So -- will human ingenuity rescue us? It might. In fact, I'd say it has to. Where else would solutions come from? And while Ms. Applebaum's cheery faith in human solutions is commendable, I think she'd have to admit that technological innovation doesn't just happen. Someone needs to see a problem and set out to address it. Tesla and Edison with electricity, Ford with transportation, etc. What disturbs me, if not Applebaum, is that there is less reason today to hope for innovation. Where are today's inventors and pioneers? We have always relied on the benefits of free enterprise and competition -- are those concepts as strong as they once were, or are they myths? I have to wonder, when I see the American Petroleum Institute's high-profile lying campaign about "four-dollar gas" and the frantic efforts of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to knock down the climate bill pending in Congress. These bastions of enterprise and competition, on which we rely to deliver the vaunted (and not altogether illusory) benefits of technological innovation, are on the hustings feverishly denying a problem exists, rather than trying to solve it.
Can they (or other innovators we haven't seen yet) be relied on to solve problems? Only if their complacency can be shaken; only if they can be pushed to admit a problem exists will they be motivated to address it. I believe in the value of the human factor, as does Applebaum -- but it's an engine that may need a jump-start from time to time. So let's not deride the Copenhagen crowd, or Al Gore, for efforts to publicize the problems. They're the canaries in the coal mine, alerting us that there's a danger we need to deal with. How apt that this allegory should come from deep within the heart of the carbon culture.
Comments