
Do you? Does anybody know for sure?
Climate change is as vague as AIDS or where in this expanding universe Osama bin Laden is. There had been countless information campaigns for climate change, but the glut of information only made us more confused.
No matter. All the confusion is making big waves for some. Al Gore made a documentary and won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for it, even if his hometown mansion rakes ridiculously huge electric bills.
The divided stance among scientists has also made us even more befuddled. Some say that humans have caused climate change through the cumulative and collective carbon footprints through the ages. Some aver that it isn’t man-made at all. While others predict that it is irreparable and permanent, others contend that there’s still hope if only we act all together now. While a huge community of scientists blames big carbon emitting countries such as the US, China, Russia, and India for global warming, a growing number of dissident scientists believe that the climate changes are simply due to the earth tipping a little on its axis, this time, as it turns.
The thought of another Ice Age coming up isn’t at all comforting. However, the idea that my weekly groceries have their own carbon footprint is amusing.
When something that should look grave, as climate change should, is allowed to flood our consciousness with a glut of information, albeit contradictory thereby confusing, our reaction eventually boils down to nonchalance.

The battle with climate change isn’t really between carbon emitters and do-gooder hardliners such as Greenpeace. The battle is between scientists who cannot make up their minds, lack sufficient scientific data before alarming the world with seemingly distressing facts, beta-testing their hypothesis upon the publics, and grandstanding with their theory dissertations for the purpose of gaining positive peer review.
In the meantime, and as a result of being a member of the current human race that watches these scientific camps pull each other’s hairs, I am content to think that my common sense concludes as pollution a huge Chinese factory spewing sulfuric-yellow smoke.
On the other hand, my common sense also tells me that it’s quite ridiculous to tell me to buy imported bananas at the groceries to make all the fruit’s carbon footprint worthwhile (since trade liberalization and globalization made those bananas travel all the way, over land and sea, just to get here). I, a member of the bewildered and bemused non-scientific sector of the human race, find it preposterous to make me eat a well-traveled and carbon footprinted banana when I can get some from my grandmother’s nearby orchard.

Via TIME
Posted by GSerrano on October 28, 2008 in News + Politics · 0 Comment