February 2008 Archives

Listening to John McCain, and previously Mitt Romney, as well as various other Republicans of all shapes and sizes, go on and on with “I’m more conservative than you are” is enough to make one nauseous, or worse. I myself haven’t known what a “real” conservative is for almost a decade. It used to be somewhat easy to define one, using a few trusty key concepts like small government, fiscal responsibility and states rights. And then, we were suddenly informed that there was something called a “compassionate conservative,” but that didn’t last very long, most likely because nobody could find many anywhere. What makes this even more confusing is that recently, Republican politicians seem to be dancing to the drum of some form of conservatism that only they can hear.

One must take it on trust that many religious extremists are conservative, only because they say they are. I don’t agree it’s a given that someone who is very religious is by nature conservative. It’s not my opinion that traditional values of any sort automatically qualify as being conservative. Yet even so, those on the religious right don’t seem to require anything from their politicians other than that they talk about religion a lot, as if that in itself means much of anything in general, nonetheless confirms their conservatism.

Most people get the importance of present global warming concerns, and to most of us this is old news. However, there are still many who really don’t understand its nature, what it is about, and what the ultimate consequences are, or might be. Instead of really attempting to grasp the reality of this phenomenon, many of these individuals, for some strange reason, talk themselves into believing it’s a political issue. There will no doubt always be some who will turn any controversy, whether it concerns climate, religion, war, economics, defining what life is, or “whatever,” into a political issue. But that is another story.

The only real issue is that humankind can only exist on this planet in a very narrow range of conditions, and the planet is quite capable of altering those conditions in a relatively short time when stressed!

The consequences of not getting this potential crisis, in the event it is real, are too irrevocably horrible to contemplate, and that is why everyone should be paying close attention! If global warming turns out not to be a threat (and most reputable scientists agree it is), the worst we might do is clean up the planet. If it is real, we as a species are toast! One doesn’t have to be a scientist to grasp the ramifications.

There are those who believe gradual warming won’t be so bad (great for that sun tan, and summer vacations in northern latitudes), and others have noticed that some places are actually cooler than normal. Getting sidetracked by local anomalies, instead of focusing on the true long-term trend, is simply a form of denial concerning the eventual consequences.