Is the Human Race Capable of Saving Itself?

By Steven C. Day

Since depressing things often aren’t surprising, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Americans seem to be “cooling” to the issue of global warming. According to the fun loving folks at Gallup, economic fears related to the Great Recession are crowding out green consciousness. The number of global warming doubters is going up, while the number of Americans willing to sacrifice to save the planet is going down.

I guess there’s nothing like a little economic hardship to make people want to tell future generations to take a piss in the wind. "I’ve got rent to pay today, so screw your apocalypse tomorrow." 

There’s really very little mystery in why it’s so hard to work up the political will to fight global warming: taking climate change seriously — as in actually doing something about it — requires long term thinking. And long term thinking just doesn’t seem to be what human beings are all about.

We can see it in our own lives. If swearing off the Big Macs and fries would save us from dying today, or maybe even tomorrow, it wouldn’t take a nanosecond for most of us the kiss the Golden Arches goodbye (although I know a few guys who might have to think about it for awhile). But, of course, absent botulism, choking or an extreme food allergy, one greasy burger isn’t likely to do in anyone. A lifetime of a Big Mac intensive diet, on the other hand, is, of course, a very real health risk. Yet, somehow, the well proven danger of early death secondary to a high fat diet hasn’t cured the nation of its fast food addiction.

At least here in America, dietary judgment is very much an individual thing. And in a libertarian sense, I suppose one could argue that’s okay: each of us gets to decide which is more important to us as individuals — long life and good health or a steady stream of double beef burritos from Taco Bell (although given that we all share in the related healthcare costs it actually isn’t that clear cut).

The difficulty when we apply this sort of thinking to global warming, of course, is that each individual can only do so much: effectively responding will require a societal commitment in the United States (together with the rest of the world). In other words, we have to get our entire society, together with most other societies in the world, to agree to make the necessary sacrifices.

And what makes this an even more daunting challenge is that the normal rules of majority based democracy don’t apply here. Effective long term action on global warming can’t be based upon 51%-to-49% type support in the electorate — and I’m not saying this because of the filibuster in the Senate. No, the real problem is the long time frame required to battle climate change. It will take decades, which means that a short-term commitment simply won’t get the job done.

If the current (hopefully) pro-green majority in Congress were to pass a good climate change bill (as opposed to the current one) without broad and durable national support, when the other side takes power, as they inevitably eventually will, they will simply vote it out again, or at least weaken it to the point of ineffectiveness. This is not to say that the current Democratic majority should not move on strong climate change legislation — it should. But only with a broad national consensus will any changes made stick over the long haul.

So that brings us to the question: Is the human race capable of saving itself?

And the answer has to be only if we are able to reach a broad based consensus to sacrifice today in order to prevent catastrophe tomorrow. And that makes me fear terribly for my children’s future: because, while we must all keep fighting, the truth is that I can see very little evidence that we’re up to the job.