Global warming is real, and we are smugly oblivious. I recall the USS Nautilus making a journey to the North Pole decades ago, poking its conning tower dramatically up through the ice right at the pole itself. An arrival theretofore possible only by dogsled and arduous effort.
Now, polar bears are apparently drowning in open North Pole seas for want of ice on which to rest and stalk seals at their breathing holes. Photographs from space, a decade ago and now, highlight the loss to Greenland glaciers, too.
It's an old story: seas over-fished, animals killed to the brink of extinction, forests destroyed, mountain streams buried under tons of mountain tops shoved aside to get coal; or arctic seas and wildlife endangered by risky oil drilling. We need to care more about the environment, and not just here, but worldwide.
For 30 years, until finally stopped by federal regulation, General Electric dumped more than a million pounds of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, into the Hudson River. GE is still lobbying to undermine the Superfund law in court and in the media while still falling short in remediation.
It got Gov. Hugh Carey to pose as if ready to drink a full glass of PCBs. GE still claims that the expensive cleanup would make the dangers of cancer and developmental disorders even worse.
"Da Nile" won't help the Hudson. And there are still loopholes in the Clean Water Act that allow mining companies to dump their waste into waterways.
But global warming is more amorphous, and perhaps therefore more ominous. Like other threats, it would be irreversible. Human beings are notoriously shortsighted. Without God's instruction, it is not at all clear that Noah would ever have been motivated to build and load the Ark. Who would have guessed?
But of course, we have science. Science, however, is not uniformly helpful. It can demonstrate the delicate interdependence between salmon swimming upstream to spawn and the forests that line Oregon rivers.
But negative consequences are not so immediate as to be obvious to those whose immediate profit is based on catching salmon. No one fissure alone can account for any devastation, so there is little sense of personal accountability.
It is deniable. It is also deniable that airliner contrails can have measurable impact on the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth. But they do.
So look at Easter Island. For over a thousand years, the Polynesian immigrants there flourished by fishing out in ocean-going canoes constructed from palm lumber. They also cut trees to make fields for agriculture. When the trees were all gone, they were trapped and perished. Haiti cut its trees down, too. We live greedily on Mother Earth as if she will always and automatically provide for our needs.
So science cannot save us from our own catastrophes, but foresight could if not overridden by selfishness. And the selfish, who manage to accumulate advantage, always seem to find rationalizations to pursue more. Science is then dismissed as flawed, or contested. Remember the defense of nicotine?
Moral objections by the religious are rules advanced to be imposed on everyone, not just within their own precinct, for themselves.
Such efforts are just as selfish as those to preserve special interests. Birth control, abortion and gay marriage are examples, as was the disastrous experiment with Prohibition.
Other rules, such as the notoriously ineffective War on Drugs or for the death penalty, are current examples of shortsightedness.
San Diego residents are due for a major earthquake this century, but no one there dwells on this eventual certainty, or even seems worried about it. We are good at tuning danger out of our minds when we have no choice.
But Americans are highly invested in the status quo, because we are well-supplied in comfort and security, and well-removed from the specter of plagues, starvation or deathly deprivation and oppression.
Our science cannot forever insulate us from the realities of other human beings in the world. Our huge dependence on coal, petroleum reserves and mobile military power is not enshrined as our eternal God-given right.
We have to be clear-minded about the long-term costs of sustaining a lavish lifestyle. And our selfish addiction to comfort and feeling superior should not blind us to the blindness of those who dismiss the risks of shortsightedness.
We need to attend to the big picture, the long-term picture, and the needs of humanity in general. Even those of the humanity across town are worthy of attention.
William Masters can be reached at wmasters@thedailystar.com. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of The Daily Star and its editorial board.
Columns
Humans need to look at long-term impact on Earth
- Big Chuck D'Imperio
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Safety Patrol D.C. visits never get old
I asked Cam Morris, head of Eastern Travel/Oneonta Bus Lines, how many years her company has been handling the Safety Patrol trip to Washington, D.C.
Continued ... - My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
- Catching a whiff of 'Vermont Vapor'
- Selections from the virtual mailbag
- Recalling days of 'Doughnut King'
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Safety Patrol D.C. visits never get old
- Cary Brunswick
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We've become our own worst enemies
The past month has been marked by a seeming unprecedented number of man-made tragedies, as distinct from those caused by violent outbursts of the natural world, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis.
Continued ... - Plenty of blame to go around for Bangladesh horror
- Obama is going against his word on Social Security
- Reflecting on a Florida trip
- Those magnificent spies in their flying machines
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We've become our own worst enemies
- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
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Records seizure is an insult to free press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
Continued ... - The evangelical view of same-sex marriage
- Manor's fate will be Otsego board's legacy
- A closer look at our economy - Part II
- Use fracking to fill budget gaps
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Records seizure is an insult to free press
- Lisa Miller
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A view from above
Fire towers in the Catskill Mountains have always been destination points, built to capture some of the region’s best views. These sentinel stations served an important role for the earliest possible sightings of forest fires in the remote mountain ranges. But the fire towers and those who manned them fulfilled a multitude of other roles as well.
Continued ... - Being a parent is a constant learning process
- Healthy doesn't have to mean expensive
- A family era ends with close of Potter series
- Independent stores make up for loss of Borders
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- Mark Simonson
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General Clinton Canoe Regatta got a new home in 1972
Ever since 1963, when Charles Hinkley and a group of Tri-Town businessmen came up with the idea for what we know today as the General Clinton Canoe Regatta, people lined the shores of the Susquehanna to watch the canoeists as they made their 70-mile trek from Cooperstown to Bainbridge.
Continued ... - Sunday movies in Oneonta finally shown in 1934
- Politics, fitness and landmarks dominated local news in May 1968
- Local people sought income in many ways in 1933
- Local windstorm in 1983 caused tense moments
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- Rick Brockway
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Kids have sparkle in their eyes
When I was in my teens, old Bill Naatz told me about a stream north of Lake George where a man had panned out enough gold to make his wife a wedding band. It was all rumors, but to his grandson and myself, it sounded like the makings of a great adventure.
- People make the outdoors even better
- Turkey season has ups and downs
- Spring air isn't always the freshest
- Adriondacks keep growing and growing
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Kids have sparkle in their eyes
- Sam Pollak
- William Masters
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Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
As the time to vote draws near, we need to remember how money can run politics more than we can. Raising funds is a prominent (if not the dominant) task of getting elected. Raising issues is also crucial, but those efforts are subject to distortion and fear-mongering.
- Republicans feelentitled to allthey can garner An entitlement is a legal benefit available from the government to individuals who are within a defined category of recipients, such as needing insurance for unemployment or health services.
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Romney focuses on self; Obama emphasizes unity
Mitt Romney criticizes President Obama for saying a person's success is rooted in his community, and is not all his alone. Romney belittles this with his belief in individual initiative. He is better at the put-down than the push-up.
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Romney shows little regard for common man
The Republicans in Congress have voted over and over, 33 times, redundantly and uselessly, to rescind what they call Obamacare.
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Scouts' gay ban creates problem where none exists
The Boy Scouts of America's "emphatic reaffirmation" of its vow to exclude any and all homosexuals from its hallowed ranks is ill-considered and pathetic, especially in view of its having reviewed the matter for two years.
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Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
