Letters posted here are associated with the following article:

22
Letters
Friday, November 4, 2005 12:00 AM

The time to act is now

The climate crisis and the need for leadership.

The letters thread is now closed.

View:
Thursday, November 3, 2005 08:54 PM

For whose sake?

I think what galls me the most about the right's refusal to adknowledge the threat of climate change is the manner in which they have been able to frame the debate as a fight over frivilous environmental nostalgia -- as if the only reason to demand agressive environmental regulation is out of some fetishistic love of snowy owls. Of course, we should all be in awe of nature's magnificance, but we should also understand that good environmental policy is good economic policy. Preventing global warming is not about saving animals, it's about saving people.

If there is one thing we should understand its that ecological disaster is only a "disaster" from a human perspective. Nature is patient and will adapt to anything that humans can do to it. Even in the worst case scenario, ecosystems will reform around new climates and slowly, eventually, inevitably balance will be restored to the system.

Of course, whether or not our small and ephemeral culture would survive -- that's the cause worth fighting for.

Most Active Letters Threads

492

Everybody hates mommy

We're "stroller Nazis." We're whiny "breeders." Why is there so much contempt for mothers these days?
454

The Washington establishment suffers a serious defeat

Approval of the Paul/Grayson bill to audit the Fed is both rare and important in several ways
374

Rule-of-law extremism engulfs primitive Eastern Europe

Why would the new President of Lithuania demand investigations of CIA black sites in her country?
286

The extreme secrecy of the federal courts

Judges are not only permitted, but required, to conceal anything the government declares to be secret.
176

Climate-gate!

Climate skeptics claim hacked e-mails prove, once and for all, that global warming is a hoax

View all »

Letters Help

Currently in Salon