When in the course of human history has mankind been so healthy, secure and prosperous that national political leaders, scientists and the media elite worldwide could be preoccupied with a theoretical crisis
predicted to occur 50 years hence? Controversy continues to rage over Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory, most recently with a minority Senate
report citing 400 eminent scientists, yet it's worth reflecting on what this debate means about the human condition at the advent of the 21
st Century.
The corollary to this preoccupation with hypothetical dangers 5 decades hence, of course, is that there is not one imminent threat to western nations that demands our immediate attention. Not one human soul is, or ever has been, in immediate danger from Global Warming.
Consider the following facts about America:
- Famine and starvation have been scourges of humanity for essentially all of history; however generations of Americans have never needed to give one thought to the security of the food supply. Indeed our number one public health problem is obesity; i.e. Americans are routinely overfed.
- Our wealth in personal vehicles and labor-saving technologies means that exercise is an avocation for most Americans, who can easily avoid the long hours of hard labor required of our ancestors.
- Nutrition, sanitation, medicine and public health are so advanced that we live unprecedentedly healthy lives. Medical conditions that would be fatal or debilitating in earlier eras are routinely cured today.
- Pestilence and epidemics are successfully treated. The AIDS epidemic and the crack-cocaine epidemic have largely been controlled, though not eliminated.
- Weather prediction enables us to be forewarned of hurricanes and other severe weather, permitting affected populations to prepare, thus vastly reducing loss-of-life and property damage that would have occurred in earlier eras.
- Modern building codes permit American cities to survive earthquakes that would have been enormous disasters with massive loss-of-life in an earlier era.
- Incidence of murder and other violent crimes are in precipitous decline in most American cities.
- The Civil Rights movement has largely overcome the racial terrorism and apartheid that occurred until quite recently in the Democratic Party-controlled Jim Crow South.
- Riots and mass protests are fairly uncommon compared to earlier decades.
- Passenger manifests as large as that of the TITANIC embark every minute at our nation's airports and experience an extraordinarily-good safety record.
- Wars and humanitarian-mission are conducted quickly and successfully by our American military around the globe with minimal troop strength and historically minimal casualties.
- Not one act of terrorism has occurred in North America since 2001.
Now let's ponder some global facts:
- By adopting capitalism in India and quasi-capitalism in China, these formerly desperately-poor nations can now feed themselves and are beginning to prosper.
- Formerly militaristic Japan and Germany have been peaceful for 60 years.
- South Korea has peacefully transitioned from an era of strong-man governments and is now a thriving democracy with a first-world economy.
- Latin American countries, especially Chile and Peru, are experience unprecedented prosperity via free-trade and capitalism.
- Israel's security wall, decried by liberals worldwide, has largely eliminated suicide bomb attacks there.
- Pro-American governments have been recently elected in France and Germany to complement those already in power in Canada, Britain, and in most of Eastern Europe.
- While violence rages in Pakistan, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the west is largely insulated from direct consequences to safety and prosperity.
- While liberals everywhere decry the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, they, along with the liberals' favorite institution, the United Nations, cannot be stirred to act.
- The widest-spread outrage expressed over American conduct is the use of "harsh" interrogation methods that leave the subject unwounded and in good health.
This historically unprecedented era of world peace, prosperity, security and health has been brought about by American military and economic power exercised through the crises of the 20th Century. Consider the following absurd scenarios:
- Imagine a former vice president lecturing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in late December 1941 that he should not be preoccupied with Hitler and Tojo but rather should devote his attention to treating a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence.
- Imagine a former vice president lecturing Harry Truman in 1950 that he should shift his focus from the fall of China to communism and the invasion of South Korea by the North in order to deal with a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence.
- Imagine a former vice president telling Dwight Eisenhower to forget about that Suez Crisis and the rise of the Soviet Empire in order to treat a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence.
- Imagine a former vice president lecturing John F. Kennedy to divert his attention from the Cuban Missile Crisis in order to treat a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence.
- Imagine a former vice president advising Lyndon Johnson to forget about those Viet Nam War protestors and race rioters and concentrate on a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence.
- Imagine a former vice president advising Richard Nixon to forget about the fall of Saigon and the potential for further capitulations to communism around the globe in order to address a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence.
- Imagine a former vice president advising Jimmy Carter to leave aside that Embassy hostage-crisis in Tehran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan so that he could take measures against a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence.
- Imagine a former vice president hectoring Ronald Reagan to leave aside the military stand-off with the Soviet Empire along with calls for Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" so that he could devote resources to preparing for a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence
- Imagine a former vice president lecturing George H.W. Bush at the time of the fall of communism to take his attention away from all the potential problems and opportunities emerging unexpectedly on the world-stage in order to devote his attention to a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence.
- Imagine a vice president telling Bill Clinton to leave aside his concern over his impeachment and the ensuing constitutional crisis in order to devote his mind to pondering a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence (for all we know this may have happened).
- Imagine a former vice president lecturing George Bush in late September 2001 to leave aside concern over Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Sadam Hussein and other terrorists and terrorist-states in order to treat a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence.
In each case, the former vice president would have been rightly ridiculed over his sense of priorities accompanied with a possible referral for psychological evaluation. However today, we are so secure, healthy and complacent with nearly eight years of economic expansion with low unemployment that Americans need not devote much attention to immediate concerns.
This may change. Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and others have a say in the worries we must face. Meanwhile many still feel able to devote considerable time heeding Al Gore, a modern Nostradamus in his ruminations about western guilt and climate change. Whatever you think of the debate over "Global Warming", we should all thank God that the State of the Union and the state of the world are so good and strong that we can concern ourselves so wholeheartedly to debate over a mathematically-predicted climate "crisis" with consequences that might occur 50 years hence.
