What happened
was a 40th birthday party for one of my daughter's best friends, a
lovely young woman I'll call Katie, which of course is not her real name. The
celebration was held at a local, up-scale, private country club to which Katie
and her husband belong. It is, I must admit, an organization that would not
have me were I so foolish as to apply for membership
.
The club and
its golf-tennis-swim facilities are situated in the midst of a sprawling,
park-like subdivision of large single-family houses well set back from the road
on expansive lots (ranging from one to more than three acres). It is a place
that exudes comfort and a certain upper middle-class style, though one remarkably
absent architectural charm or merit. But, if your taste runs to large, design-bereft
subdivision houses you might feel perfectly at home.
But, I
digress. I chanced to witness the celebration owing to my wife's sudden illness.
She had been invited to participate but was trapped in her sick bed, unable to
move other than to bemoan her miserable fate. So, the task of delivering the appropriately
salacious card and a few well-chosen gifts fell to me.
The first
thing I noticed on driving into the main country club parking lot around 2:00 in
the afternoon was that all the vehicles were monster SUVs or luxury sedans made
by Mercedes Benz, BMW, Cadillac, Jaguar, or Lexus. My poor little Hyundai resembled
Ashputtle before attending the prince’s ball.
Once in the
club I went straight to the 19th Hole but only saw some 20 or so tipsy
men dressed strangely in lime green or bright yellow pants decorated with little
blue whales, brightly colored ducks, or crossed golf clubs. And belatedly remembered that that watering
hole was restricted to male members only (pun intended). On hearing quite a commotion
from the bar I headed in that direction and spotted Katie surrounded by more
than a dozen female friends in a state of considerable gaiety.
Half eaten
plates of finger food and glasses in varying stages of emptiness occupied the
tables and competed with stacks of opened presents. In short, the women were
having a wonderful time, having started drinking at their 9:00 tee-off and
continued unabated throughout the day. I delivered the
obligatory kiss on the cheek, card, gifts, and my wife's genuine apologies for
having to miss all the fun. After taking my leave, I walked past four or five tables
of older women playing cards or just drinking and talking in the comfort of the
plush surroundings.
Over the next
several days I couldn't stop thinking about that experience and what it portends
for our collective future. First, I must say that that club is one of some two dozen
private country clubs in a metropolitan area of nearly three million people. Second,
the far greater majority of the members of those clubs are upper-income and
successful in their business ventures. Third, although I cannot make this statement
based on anything other than personal opinion informed by several decades
working as an urban planner, I am certain that the greater majority of those
individuals are Republicans by party and conservatives by ideology who scoff at
global warming/climate change and oppose doing anything whatsoever to combat its adverse effects, largely because they believe it doesn't exist.
But, the most
critical reason that I believe people like my friends, Katie and her husband, people
I genuinely care for, oppose action on countering the effects of global warming
is neither their party affiliation nor their ideology but is an intense desire
to remain entrenched in and deeply nourished by their comfort zone. Let's be honest.
Who would not relish a life with maids, nannies, luxury cars, country clubs, elite
private schools for the kids, vacations to Hawaii or Aspen (in winter), and
trust funds sufficient to bail you out of trouble when the occasion arises? A
life where wives don't work and husbands take off from their jobs whenever they feel like it.
Who would
voluntarily give up such a genuinely comfortable and enjoyable life? I can
guarantee no one in that country club would. No one. Simply asking people like
that to shed their security blankets would be thought absolutely and mind-bogglingly
insane. Or, far worse, socialist. And what about the millions of Americans who do not enjoy that lavish lifestyle but dream about attaining it one day and living in the lap of luxury? How likely are they to give up that dream voluntarily? What about close to zero?.
If you
multiple that club times the well more than 4,000 similar institutions in the
U.S. and by the many millions of Americans who want a better life you have a small inkling of the problem we face. Polls in the U.S. tell us
that about 40 percent of the general population believes global warming is a
hoax. The far, far greater majority of those deniers are Republican. Although I
have seen no polls conducted with those who make more than $250,000 annually, I
bet most of those people would be global warming deniers who would adamantly
oppose reducing their lifestyles or their patterns of consumption to cut the
nation’s carbon footprint. What, me sacrifice? Get real.
So, we have a
national situation where all top Republicans, including Romney Ryan, oppose
implementing policies to reduce our carbon footprint and a global situation
where nearly two billion Asians desperately want a consumption-oriented Western
lifestyle with access to energy, cars, clothing, and food in amounts commensurate
with that desire, and are working hard to get just that. What those situations must lead to, since neither Americans
nor Asians are likely to change their desires, is global geo-engineering “solutions”
to climate change and all the unintended consequences we are unable to foresee.
The critical assumption, of course, is that those currently poorly formulated “solutions”
will work fast enough, meaning within the next 30 to 40 years, to significantly
reduce CO2 so that the worst effects of greenhouse gases can be avoided.
