Embracing Global Warming (by Captain Paul Watson)

[Guest guest]

Embracing Global Warming

 

9/12/06

 

Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

 

 

One thing that I am absolutely convinced of is that

global warming is not an imminent threat. It is not

something that we should be trying to prevent for the

simple reason that global warming is not the future.

 

 

 

Global warming is now. It is a today. It is a clear

and present reality. For those who do not believe that

global warming has arrived, they can only fantasize

denial for a little longer. We are all in the midst of

it, and the world is quickly changing and that change

is accelerating rapidly.

 

 

 

The Kyoto Protocol was a big waste of time and money.

The United States was right to not sign it although

for the wrong reasons. It was just the usual let’s

have a conference where we will once again do very

little to address a problem we should have done

something about decades before. In the end it was all

about signing some papers and patting each other on

the back for being ecologically correct.

 

 

 

An Inconvenient Truth is an entertaining second wind

for a failed politician but it simply is little more

than a scary movie without practical solutions. Al

Gore, a man with a very big ecological footprint wants

the rest of us to leave a shallow ecological footstep.

The Earth can be saved if we do as he suggests. He

also seriously believes we will be saved with the

return of Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

Is the Earth threatened by global warming? Not really.

The earth will adapt as the Earth has always adapted.

This planet has witnessed and endured phases of

warming and cooling of violent extremes. Climate

change has been the leading cause of habitat

disruption and species extermination for a few billion

years.

 

 

 

There is nothing new about global warming except this

time we the human species are responsible and we the

human species will reap what we have sown. This is

nothing unnatural because we as a species evolved

naturally and we are very much children of this

planet. We are incapable of doing anything contrary to

the laws of nature, at least not for long, before the

consequences come around and smack us smartly in the

back of the head like a nun scolding us for talking

during class.

 

 

 

Except that the consequences may be a trifle bit more

severe than an angry sister Mary of perpetual

discipline.

 

 

 

Which brings us to the next question and the one most

important to human society in the present. Is global

warming a threat to human civilization?

 

 

 

The answer is quite possibly and most likely a

qualified yes.

 

 

 

Rising sea levels, more violent storms, changing ocean

currents, drought, flooding, famine better conditions

for insect and bacterial species and thus more

virulent and new disease, more forest fires and

assorted inconveniences will certainly be a cause for

concern, especially for people in the coming decades.

On the other hand humans historically only seem to

react, adapt, and thrive to adversity. Perhaps our

survival will be because of our folly that brings us

to an environment of perpetual adversity.

 

 

 

Natural history tells us that periods of global

warming are beneficial for increasing biological

diversity. Humans have been a leading cause of

diminishment of diversity over the last few thousand

years. For every action there is a reaction and

diminishment of diversity by humans appears to be in a

stage of being corrected by the activities of humanity

that are contributing to global warming.

 

 

 

Ecologists should not be fearing global warming. We

should be embracing it as a solution to the serious

human caused problem of loss of bio-diversity. What

may not be good for civilization may well be very

beneficial for the revival and rejuvenation of global

eco-systems.

 

 

 

We certainly should not be wasting our energies trying

to prevent something that has already begun and is

unstoppable. The fact remains that if we stopped

production of all greenhouse gas emissions today, the

climate change juggernaut is well on its way like a

runaway train on a steep decline.

 

 

 

And the reality is that even faced with a 100%

certainty of the collapse of civilization in one

hundred years, human society will not abandon the

present economic and cultural pressures that are the

cause of our greenhouse gas emissions.

 

 

 

We will not stop driving cars, flying in airplanes,

heating our homes, cutting down our forests, burning

coal and oil for power and over-fishing the seas. We

will not stop over breeding and expanding our numbers.

We will not because we are culturally wired towards

short term survival. Material gratification today and

in the near future guides our actions more than

abstract long term academic concerns. We tend to take

today and worry about tomorrow – well, tomorrow.

 

 

 

Nature’s great, brief, experiment in intelligent

primate dominance of the Earth may turn out to be a

super big glorious mistake. In the end we may only

have succeeded in creating the conditions to better

the lives of insects and ferns, which may not be a bad

thing because at least after the collapse of our

civilizations – the earth will abide.

 

 

 

Captain Paul Watson is a co-founder of the Greenpeace

Foundation, a former director of the Sierra Club USA

and the

 

Founder and current President of the Sea Shepherd

Conservation Society.

 

 

 

Permission given to reprint and distribute

 

 

 

 

 

Captain Paul Watson

Founder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation

Society (1977-

Co-Founder - The Greenpeace Foundation (1972)

Co-Founder - Greenpeace International (1979) of the Sierra Club USA (2003-2006) - The Farley Mowat Institute - www.harpseals.org

 

 

" Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only,

Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with

me,

For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to

go,

And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. "

- Walt

Whitman

 

 

www.Seashepherd.org

Tel: 360-370-5650

Fax: 360-370-5651

 

Address: P.O. Box 2616

Friday Harbor, Wa 98250 USA