Climate Sunday: Weapons of Mass Distraction

I have to give Secretary of State John Kerry credit for giving climate change its proper due in his recent speech in Jakarta, even though the language he used seems to have rankled some nerves.

By comparing climate change to weapons of mass destruction or terrorism and criticizing climate change denialists, he received quick responses from the likes of Newt Gingrich, who suggested that Kerry should resign over the comments, and Senator John McCain, who expressed surprise that this was a major concern of Sec. Kerry's while other things were going on in the world.

To tackle the obvious first--seriously, John Kerry should resign for a somewhat different opinion from one held by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who was for doing something about climate change before he was against it? That seems awfully severe, doesn't it? And really, the rest of his complaint is pretty much similar to Sen. McCain's--isn't there other things the US should concern itself with?

To answer the first question--I am not sure why Newt Gingrich doesn't think global climate change is of sufficient seriousness to merit exactly that kind of speech, but that is on him. We've already begun to experience severe weather events, which are coming more frequently. Climate change will affect the availability of water in some areas (see how drought affects Texas and California today) and the ability to grow food to feed ourselves, raising the prices of everything.  Economies of nations will suffer and collapse. Climate refugees will flood the areas that remain temperate enough to still have opportunities for survival. If this scenario plays out--that is deadly damn serious and affects our whole global civilization. (You know, the one where humans are the dominant species on this planet.) Avoiding it would be preferable, dealing with the unavoidable bits would be nice. You might think a person as interested in saving western civilization as Gingrich purports to be could get behind saving this place, Earth, where we are having it.




But to deal with the second question--why wouldn't we be able to accomplish different things at the same time? Somehow, we manage as a nation to handle having domestic affairs, and deal with foreign relations. It helps that there are so many millions of people in this country to focus on different things. But pointing to Syria or Iraq or Iran is essentially a distraction. Given what our economy can do best, I think we have a better shot at influencing better utilization of renewable resources than we have at mitigating violence in various areas of the globe. We have, at least, a clearer idea of what can be done in terms of reducing CO2 output and a much less clear path in terms of whom to support in any regional conflict. But taking up for doing what's right by the environment doesn't mean dropping whatever our interests are elsewhere.

Thinking that it would, would be...what would I call that? Naive? And unimaginative. I reject their criticisms because I think they lack the broad perspective necessary to even see the problem. The world is not the Fox News audience. It is cocoa and coffee bean farmers shifting their planting up mountainsides. It's fisherman heading out to deeper sea because their catch is disappearing. It's homeowners making the costly decision whether they must modify their properties according to rising seas or simply move. It's loggers and horticulturalists coping with invasive species they never had before. It is a problem everywhere at once that these shortsighted critics obscure by pointing at other things a little further off. Are those things serious--yes. But should they direct our attention away from also being stewards of our world's resources? Not at all.