I've been kind of laying low for the last few days, just following this discussion as it wanders along. It is obviously a polarizing topic. I'm firmly in the camp with all the other skeptics. We accuse the science of being poor and politically and idealogically driven. Those who beleive in global warming and that it is caused by man say that we are skirting the issues any way we can and going along happily with blinders on. I'm sure there is some truth to both of those. I still think, to say the least, that if there is good science behind global warming, the proponents of global warming have done a great job of hiding it behind bad science and politics. I also think for each skeptic that is unwilling to read the proverbial 'writing on the wall' there is a global warming proponent who has blind faith in propaganda he has done nothing to research. And that's a pretty typical breakdown of people in general.
On the other hand, I suspect that most of us here, whether we are left or right or liberal or conservative, have more than a passing interest in being good stewards of the environment. Environmentalism has a long tradtion with the left/liberal mindset. A sense of duty toward and respect for the environment have been inherent in conservatism since before the Civil War. The left tends to take its concern for the environment to extremes to such an extent that often makes them irrelevant to mainstream America and even many on the left. The right has negelected its inherent conservatism and been swept away by a free-market morality that is not moral at all. Free-market morality is an oxymoron.
Given this broad generalization of the two groups, I think this quote by Wendell Berry is the most clear thinking assessment of the situation I have seen:
To me, it appears that these two sides are divided as they are because each is clinging to its own version of a common economic error. How can this be corrected? I don't think it can be, so long as each of the two sides remains closed up in its own conversation. I think the two sides need to enter into one conversation. They have got to talk to one another. Conservationists (the left) have got to know and deal competently with the methods and economics of land use. Land users (the right) have got to recognize the urgency, even the economic urgency, of the requirements of conservation.
Failing this, these two sides will simply concede an easy victory to their common enemy, the third side, the corporate totalitarianism which is rapidly consolidating as "the global economy" and which will utterly dominate both the natural world and its human communities.
emphasis mine
For those concerned about the environment, regardless of your politics or idealogy, this is the truth, pure and simple and horrible. Have we done this in this thread? Have we "talked to one another"? In some ways we have and in others we have failed. But at least we're talking.
