Friday, Feb 8, 2013
1. THE POLITICAL CLIMATE: GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT INEVITABLE.
"Don't look back," Satchel Paige warned, "something may be gaining on
you." Like maybe global warming? The 37-nation Kyoto Protocol to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions terminated on 1 Jan 2013, having accomplished
little or nothing in 15 years. Indeed, climate scientists find atmospheric
carbon increasing faster than ever. If all this is true, and I believe it
is, the vanishing of the Arctics summer sea-ice could mark a tipping point
that will shift the Earth's climate into a new trajectory that could take
millennia to reach a new equilibrium, as Clive Hamilton points out in a
brilliant new book, Requiem for a Species. Sadly, the issue of climate
change was almost totally ignored in the 2012 presidential election, pushed
aside by class warfare. Speaking of class warfare, that's not getting
better either.
A month ago the US Supreme Court ended an effort to shut down government
support of human embryonic stem cell research by refusing to hear a case
that challenged the legality of such work at NIH. Good! Embryonic-stem-
cell research is thought by many to be the most promising approach to
treatment of numerous human diseases, but 20 years ago anti-abortionists
pushed a bill through Congress banning the use of federal funds for
research on human embryos. Some religions believe the Holy Ghost bestows a
soul on a zygote at the moment of conception, making the zygote a one-
celled person (see Whats New, 8 Nov 98). The Obama
administration rejected this silly superstition, but it was kept alive in the courts by the appeal
process. Rejection of the appeal by the Supreme Court assures resumption
of potentially life-saving stem-cell research.
About 6 billion fewer than the 7 billion we have now would be nice. Our
streams would again run clear, the Milky Way would return to the night sky,
and cod fish to the Grand Banks. However, in last Saturday's Wall Street
Journal, neoconservative writer Jonathan Last blamed a falling fertility
rate for our financial problems. He seems unaware of other problems in the
world. In fact, a modest decline in population is already seen in rich
countries; that's why they're rich. But we live on a finite planet and
there are already far too many of us. An average fertility rate of two
would lead to a gradual reduction but there is no reason to hurry. Human
history is largely an account of clumsy attempts to reduce populations by
war. It usually has the opposite effect.
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