CAUSE AND EFFECT
Fred Wilson has some of the best discussions going on his blog. A case in point are some of the responses to his recent post titled "Late May in January". Fred makes his point as follows:
"It's 70 degrees in NYC today...
I expect a few more people are making a commitment to buy a hybrid the next time they buy a car."
I know Fred was trying to be provocative here in order to start a discussion and he's done a great job again here.
But anecdotally, this knee-jerk response connecting the concern over global warming with buying a hybrid car, is something I've seen over half a dozen times in cocktail party conversations on both coasts.
At a time when over 2 billion people in the developing world out of the six billion souls on the planet are racing furiously towards "developed world" status, the solution to the global warming is of course a bit more complicated than everyone in the developed world buying a hybrid car.
This point was made more eloquently by a Steve, in a comment responding to Fred's post:
"The desire to see cause and effect in chaos is one of the strongest core components of the human psyche, and arguably explains why organized religion evolved and retains such a strong grip on human society despite (because of?) the lack of any empirical evidence regarding the presence of a deity.
Frighteningly, this aspect of our chemistry or DNA or whatever now powers the urge to see every bad storm or period of odd-ball weather as somehow attributable to a new God -- global warming.
As you know from my previous writings, I believe global warming is occuring. But to turn it into a religion (or a "moral crusade" as Father Gore calls it) can only have painful and counterproductive results.
For example, if all we all do is go out and buy a new car, even a hybrid, we can be assured that environmental change will be far worse than if we keep our heads and take coordinated rational collective action.
Check it out for yourself: food supply livestock around the globe accounts for vastly more greenhouse gas emissions (methane, principally from bovine digestion) than from internal combustion engines in vehicles.
Even more damaging is the continuing changover of the world's surface from wilderness (of any kind, pristine, picturesque or ugly and useless) into farmland. If we think global warming is really such a mortal threat to humankind (not to Nature, which couldn't care less) then we should focus on the subjects scientists do seem to agree on -- that, instead of going to toyota.com, people should figure out how to slow population growth in the third world (its already essentially stopped in the developed world -- the USA is growing only because of immigration and Europe and Russia are shrinking fast) or if thats too cruel, then how to feed 10 billion souls without livestock and modern agriculture."
In the last two days, driving a few hundred kilometres through rural southern India, we've seen countless
trees being uprooted on the sides of the road in order to make way for a four-lane highway, upgrading the current two-lane "highway".
We've also seen village after village burning cow dung patties as fuel for their daily meals. These patties are sold on carts daily as seen in the adjacent picture from Flickr.
We also saw many, many small, controlled fires clearing away brush for development of some sort.
It's time we stopped blaming ourselves and/or each other, get our perspective re-calibrated on the full range of cause and effect, and then figure out how go about addressing the real scope of the global warming situation.
Oh by the way, buying a hybrid like a Toyota Prius is something I would heartily recommend. Not just for it's environmental dividends, but also because it's one of the most fun cars to drive.
Not to mention that in certain states like California, it's one of the few cars certified to be driven in the carpool lanes with a single driver.
That's no small benefit if you've ever experienced rush hour in an around LA.
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