Here and There

Stories like this always strike me for how overdue they are.

And of course, I have to wonder if a bunch of people no one has heard of (ex-heads of the EPA? puh-lease!) suddenly speaking out will make a difference on an issue as important as global warming.

Rather, it seems that stories like one that Thomas Friedman wrote in today’s New York Times resonate more with the people who still have to be convinced that something is up. In his column, Friedman points to the “green design” of a new semiconductor plant opened by Texas Instruments outside Dallas. The article notes the ecological and economic benefits of such an approach to manufacturing.

I just can’t believe there are still people cynical enough to believe that the warming of the earth and its oceans is A) not a crisis, and B) not due to human activity. It’s easy to be ignorant when you won’t be reaping the full effects of your actions during your lifetime. Thing is, we are starting to see wide-scale effects of warming today. And most experts agree it’s only getting worse.

New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert, whose three-part series “The Climate of Man” last year illustrated the extent to which environmental degradation has occurred, has another story in the January 9, 2006 issue of the magazine. This time, Kolbert describes how various insect and amphibian species are reacting to rising temperatures, and how evidence of global warming just keeps building.

It’s one thing to be cynical about politics or love. It’s quite another to be so jaded that you ignore what will soon be in front of all our eyes, and what future generations, if they’re able to live on this planet, will have to endure as well.

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