Sunday, October 14, 2012

Why Global Warming Will Triumph

Last week something happened that I came to realize represented why I'm absolutely convinced modern culture as we know it is doomed. Naturally, I'm thinking here about the coming catastrophic effects of global warming.

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
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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.

My bet, if one were possible, would be to go short against that assumption. But I'm 70-years-old so it's neither here nor there as far as my life is concerned because I'll be dead before the shit really hits the fan. My grandchildren and their children are another story entirely. I'm very, very happy I'll miss all that.