Here's another Elizabeth Kolbert review in the current New Yorker magazine, providing a rather pointed critique of the techno-fix attitude toward climate change. Among our duties toward the environment, perhaps, is to avoid promulgating bad ideas...
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/091116crbo_books_kolbert
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4 comments:
Why don't we use Mr. Montgomery Burn's idea and create a giant shield to block out the sun!
I think this is the only thing Levitt and Dubner said that I agree with:
"It's not that we don't know how to stop polluting the atmosphere. We don't want to stop, or aren't willing to pay the price."
That is not to say that this is true of all people, but there certainly needs to be a major shift in the way people view this problem.
We certainly do need a major attitude adjustment. Levitt and Dubner don't help matters by fatalistically assuming that simply because there is resistance, it's not going to happen, and then promoting a purportedly easy way out.
Why is it that economists from famous universities are so often blinkered on these issues (I'm thinking here about Garret Hardin)?
I agree with Levitt and Dubner as well, that we are not willing to pay the price to try and fix things. Doing this requires a lot of money and a lot of effort. If it's not a collective effort, then there will not be much of an effort at all.
Tying this in with the last chapter in Jamieson, I think it is also up to the U.S. to contribute largely into this scheme of fixing the climate problem. The U.S. and its policy makers are stubborn, and again, do not want to make the effort into helping the planet or trying to change our comfortable style of living. I think that if the U.S. at least takes a few steps in the right direction, we'll see a good shift in the rest of the world as well to do the same. Of course, Western Europe is ahead of the game, but I think that the U.S. is one of the most influential countries in the world. A "follow the leader" type of mentality my ensue if we started thinking about climate change and not our selfish and wasteful tendencies.
I agree with Shelby here, our society needs to absolutely change the way we view this problem. People need to think about the facts and not the rumored assumptions of others. It is interesting that Levitt and Dubner note that "When the solution to a given problem doesn’t lie right before our eyes, it is easy to assume that no solution exists." I believe this is a huge issue in solving the worlds problems. If everyone took a closer look at how they could individually change their lives, things could quite possibly begin to look up for the atmosphere.
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