In his debut column for Conscious Choice (this month), Daniel Pinchbeck paints a vivid picture of the cherry trees blossoming in Central Park over Christmas, and tells us that January temperatures in Manhattan were averaging 15 degrees over normal. Many of you may have noticed the same with the cherry trees in Millennium Park that same week. Myself, I spent a week in Los Angeles in mid-January where the average temperature was 50°, and dropped into the 20s at night. Seems evidence enough, after all we’ve seen these last few years, that climate shift is real, never mind that 2006 was the nation’s warmest year. And yet the Chicago Sun-Times headline on January 10th was “Is Al Gore Right?” asking, “is he on to something—or are our higher-than-average temperatures natural?”
Natural? How do they say this stuff with a straight face?
Well, it’s not just them, and it gets a lot worse. The libertarian think tank Cato Institute, according to Wikipedia, “holds regular briefings on global warming with renowned global warming skeptics as panelists. They believe that no known mechanism can stop global warming in the near term, that international agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol, would have ‘no detectable effect on average temperature…even with full compliance.’” In response to a 2003 World Watch Report that linked climate change and severe weather events, Cato’s Jerry Taylor responded with “It’s false. There is absolutely no evidence that extreme weather events are on the increase. None!”
In other words, why bother changing? It’s almost too much to believe, but it’s not even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Cato’s sheer idiocy. Trust me I know, I get their press releases regularly. These, of course, are the same fruitloops who think that the green movement is really just a Marxist conspiracy to regulate business and “end property rights.” Cato, and other right wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, base their ideology on defending the good ole American “right” to make money and own property, no matter the social or environmental costs. Pollute the planet, invade other nations, use depleted uranium shells, build sweatshops? Whatever it takes so I git mines!
In other words, these groups defend the Gordon Gekko principle from the movie “Wallstreet,” that greed is good. But if all they have left to defend is their greed—their right to possess more—then perhaps that’s all the indication one would ever need that we greenies and conscious folk are going to be on the right side of history. In the end, it all comes down to intent. Are you working for the collective good, or your own personal gain? Do you care, or do you crave?
Crave love, not stuff.
— Charles Shaw