Global Warming needs a name change…

Posted on December 14th, 2007 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials.

You know, it always strikes me as kind of odd when people like Al Gore talk about saving our planet.  It’s as if he wants to detach us from the reality of it all.  I mean, do people really relate to “global warming”?  It’s such an innocuous terminology.  It’s as if we’re pushing the thermostat in our humble abodes up a degree.  Oh… ominous.  Maybe we ought to consider another approach in order to convince people that they might want to take an interest in the climate.  Instead of talking about “saving the planet” maybe a good dose of reality should be tossed into the mix.  I would propose a change in approach.  Maybe something along the lines of, “Global warming, the planet will be fine… but we’ll all be dead.”  Now that’s an attention grabber.

You see I think that the message has been diluted.  The whole saving the planet thing doesn’t compute in the small minds of the public.  You need to bring it down to their level by making it about saving themselves.  The simple fact is that people could care less about what could happen in fifty or a hundred years.  It’s just our own pathetically selfish nature that dictates what we care about.  Do we really care about future generations?  I don’t know, I see some parents that can’t even get it together for their own kids.  I see baby boomers in denial about the solvency of social security.  It seems that nobody cares about much of anything until it’s staring them in the face.

So to all of you climate conscious folks that see doom and gloom in our world’s future I say, revise your message.  Enough about “the planet”, Earth will be fine (maybe even better having purged itself of the cancer that is man).  Start talking about famine, disease, plague or even the threat of one’s gun toting neighbors going cannibal in a world in which food is in short supply.  Put a little passion into the message, even if it does take some dramatic license.  All of your nebulous facts and figures are being met with a collective yawn the world over… and it’s a shame because there is some merit in the science.  I just think you have to recognize who you’re talking to out there.  You better be holding a gun to my head if you want the focus of my life to move away from the next mortgage payment, work, the family and all of the other realities of life.  That’s just the way things are in this modern world and to ignore that while trying to change hearts and minds is stupid. 

Maybe something along the lines of “Climate Armaggedon” would stir more folks to the cause.  Considering the state of politics, that might be a winner.  That said, if the message remains as it has been previously presented we won’t act until forced to react.  Time to bring out the big guns and truly convince us of what’s coming down the road!

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