Attitudes to Greenhouse Gases

Because greenhouse gases circulate quickly through the entire atmosphere, mankind must come to a consensus on what to do about greenhouse gases and global warming. There are essentially two competing views:

  1. This is the view of most North Americans. Let’s burn the fossil fuels as fast as possible. We will be rich. We will die young but happy. Tough beans for the next generation. I hate my kids anyway, the ungrateful little bastards. Sometimes these people lie, pretending they know better than the scientists about the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. The lonely, terminally selfish elderly, like the Koch brothers, are attracted to this view since they trust they will die of natural causes before the global warming effects start becoming fatal. These people have a similar mindset to cocaine addicts who argue that even though the drug is killing them, it feels very good now and now is all that matters.
  2. This is the view of most non-North Americans. Much as we think we need unlimited cheap energy, much as we are tempted by the riches of selling fossil fuels, the global warming side effects of fossil fuel burning are suicidal. We simply have to do something else, no matter how inconvenient, how expensive, how uncomfortable or how difficult. It would be unspeakably selfish to sacrifice future generations just for our temporary comfort. Thankfully, the cost of clean energy has dropped below fossil fuels. Fossil fuel companies are trying every filthy trick in the book to fool people into continuing to buy dirty, expensive, planet-destroying fossil fuels.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)