Thursday, November 02, 2006

Global Warming

A more reasonable look at the "problem"

9 comments:

anita said...

and what ARE these "far more urgent, and far less speculative, problems" ???

facts, please.

Rhino-itall said...

did you read the story? disease, hunger, clean water, etc.

Rhino-itall said...

Anita,

"The consensus was that communicable diseases, sanitation and water, malnutrition and hunger, and education were all higher priorities than climate change."

anita said...

Of course all of those are all important and very difficult problems that need to be solved, particularly education. But they are not mutually exclusive. A holistic approach needs to be taken. Some would argue that there are aspects of climate change and global warming that actually exacerbate some of those problems.

Anonymous said...

Well, we have to end apartheid for one. And slow down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless, and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights, while also promoting equal rights for women. We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values. Most importantly, we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people.

Rhino-itall said...

Anita, the point is that the resources are limited. What's more important? Will the temperature of the earth be 3 degrees hotter on average in 50 years? and more importantly is there anything we can do about it? we don't know for sure, but i know for sure that children are starving and dying of diseases that can be prevented by clean drinking water, and we CAN definitely do something about that.

anita said...

I still think education is the #1 priority. We have huge numbers of illiterate people in the world ... and surprisingly, many of them in our own country and in some other countries, women are denied education, as we all know.

Without an educated populace, a country cannot evem begin to effectively solve those issues of:

global warming
civil rights
stopping terrorism
communicable diseases
sanitation and water
malnutritian and hunger
slowing the nuclear race

etc. etc. etc.

Rhino-itall said...

I think education is important, however i think maybe eating and drinking clean water is just slightly more important.
I know it's important to know how to read so that you can make a living, but as josey wales once famously said, "dying ain't much of a living now is it boy?"

anita said...

rhinoculous, i think we may have have a 'chicken and the egg' kind of thing going on here.

but as a good republican, don't you want the general populace of poor nations to be educated enough to the extent that they, themselves, can solve their own poverty issues? so that they have good candidates who can participate in the global water crisis? so that they can develop the resources and tools to feed their own people?

and since i'm on that issue, women's rights definitely comes into play. if half of the population of any given third-world nation is uneducated, incapable of fending for themselves and not participating in the civil life of the nation, then there is no way that these major problems will be solved.