Hope For Reason
Driving home late Wednesday night, I heard on the BBC World Service a high ranking executive from the US auto industry speaking on C02 emissions. In defense of his company’s automobile’s carbon footprint, he pointed out that there has been a massive increase in population since the year 1970, and reminded us that humans exhale carbon dioxide.
Now, let’s be clear; this man was not on the radio to educate us about the earth’s population, or to advocate birth control. He was implying, of course, that since humans breathe out C02 and since our numbers have greatly increased, we can hardly criticize his company’s automobiles for doing the same.
What pitiful logic. A freshman in high school could see through it. It reminds me of a comment I saw a dentist make a year or so ago, on a live call in show on local television. The dentist was asserting that the heavy metal toxicity inherent in silver fillings is neglibible. If you eat seafood, he stated, which contains heavy metals (due to toxic waste dumping, though he didn’t mention that), you might as well not worry about the mercury in a silver filling.
Another logical trap! One he clearly failed to think through.
At first he got it by me; it almost made sense. But then I realized, hold on, if you eat seafood, then that’s all the more reason not to get a silver filling.
This man’s logic was akin to a doctor telling you that if you work at a toll booth all day breathing auto emissions, you might as well have a cigarette when you get off work.
Pretty weak.
I saw a television ad recently that I believe was from the Reagan era, in which they tried get over an even worse kind of thinking. Humans breathe out carbon dioxide, the narrator pointed out, and plants need it to live. Thus, they implied, there was no need for tougher regulations to curb industrial C02 emissions. Industry was in fact helping the planet thrive!
Deliberate obfuscation, greed, and an inability to face up to the facts may work for a while, but people are catching on. I believe there is a worldwide movement toward consciousness, compassion, and sanity. The dinosaurs of a bygone era may still have some momentum, but their days are numbered.
Tristan L. Sullivan
23. June, 2007 at 14:40
Basically they’re LYING. Mostly to -themselves- but to all of us as well.
It’s endlessly horrifying to me how ‘educated’ people can lie to themselves with such ease.
As for the dinosaurs fading away, the sad fact is they BREED and there are always more stupid/willful fools to replace them.
I think -awareness- of environmental problems has increased but the -will- to DO something hasn’t. Not because good people aren’t trying - they are - but because ruthless self-interest and profiteering have thwarted them at almost every turn.
Either we create a real, viable third party that has no thrall to the corporate interests or we resign ourselves to the endless downward spiral and eventual environmental disaster. Both of the current political parties do as they’re told, which is to protect corporate profits.
23. June, 2007 at 16:59
Great to have you back, M. Douglas.
There is a quote from someone named Edmund Burke, Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. This is what made the difference for me.