catapult magazine

The other day, I heard a Chicago-radio interview with a scientist who claimed that global warming theories are the result of people who reduce the scope of history to their own limited experience. He says that people with a self-centered, individualist worldview think this generation is the first to face large-scale climatic changes. Such a narrowly focused perspective finds expression in theories such as ozone depletion and global warming.

The scientist said the earth has encountered far greater environmental hazards than car fumes and hairspray emissions. The earth’s atmosphere is capable of handling major changes caused by volcanoes, earthquakes, glacier increases and decreases, etc. He suggested that today’s society thinks too highly of themselves when they talk of human destruction of the earth. Thinking that human beings can so easily drain the earth’s oil supply in such a short amount of time reflects an inflated view of human power.

Though we recognize that humans do have a responsibility for the earth and that what we do does affect the earth, is there a tendency in “environmentalism” to think too highly of human power?

I don’t rightly know.

I do recall reading CATO articles in 1998 about global warming being a result of our hysteria. I think most of the arguments for global warming being a social construct come from groups that are more anti-big government and conservative. I find the political coincidence interesting.

I always thought Al Gore invented global warming in the mid 80s around the same time he invented the internet.

The idea of global warming is fairly recent. As far as I know the majority of atmospheric scientists didn’t agree that there is a global warming trend until the late 1970s and early 1980s. In there early 1900s scientists were able to show that carbon levels in the atmosphere affect the earth’s temperature.

But you must remember that the environmental movement didn’t really get going until the early 1970s. All these ideas about humans damaging the earth in a big, irreperable way are recent.