Confession

I don't care about Global Warming.

It may be happening, it may not; I don't know anywhere near enough about climatology, the o-zone or all those other nerd things to speak or even think clearly and definitively on the matter. What I do know is this: if Global Warming is happening, some other shit will then happen and humanity will work around the consequences with the existential heroism that saw the species through its descent from the treetops,Black Death, the Dinosaurs,
and the terrible volcanic struggles of the late 90s

One of the problems I have with the Global Warming issue is that we seem to have confused apprehending that a problem exists with apprehending the problem entirely. When we say things like "The past five years have seen the sharpest global temperature increase on record" we let the vividness of the statement obscure the fact that the most descriptive part of the sentence is actually the final two words. Organized and disciplined study of Earth's climate and atmosphere goes back what -- 150 years? 200 tops? Our grasp of the fundamentals of this stuff may be growing and improving at a remarkable rate, but it is still limited. The finality and certainty with which much of the discourse surrounding this (particularly abstract)topic is conducted strikes me as eagerly overoptimistic at best and as hubris at worst.

Many of the proposals for combatting and reversing Global Warming are extremely large in scale and economically disruptive in character. Do I find our current tenets of climate change sufficently compelling to walk places and take public transportation whenever possible and support the development of hybrid/electric automobiles? Yes. Do I find our current tenets of climate change sufficently compelling to stop eating meat

or deny crucial aspects of economic development to the Third World? Absolutely not.

My fear is that we may be outfoxing ourselves on this issue. I am reminded of the parable of the good samaritan. I don't think the priest and the levite walked past the beaten merchant because they were just being dickheads, it was probably because they had "more important" good work to do (e.g., "I'd love to help that poor man, but then I wouldn't be able to to go about my business of saving the souls of my congregation, which is really more important.") The idea that the ultimate, abstract good supersedes the small, direct good seems to justify the discounting of the beaten merchant; that a noble destination permits not trampling, but perhaps sidestepping those in one's path is a very dangerous one. This actually speaks very directly to the fundamental difference between capitalism and communism: one protects the liberty the person, the other demands the well-being of "The People."

Apart from the moral reasons I can't get myself terribly ginned up about Global Warming are the practical problems large-scale, long term action on the subject would entail. I am a firm proponent of not making important, binding decisions until the last practical moment because it isn't until then that our vision of the universe of circumstances in which the actions stemming from that decision will unfold is at its peak clarity. Centring much of the course of human event over the next half-century on our beginner's knowledge of this vast concept would be like committing to four years of dating the first girl you make out with during college because she's the best girl you've met there (so far).

Trying to at once enact "solutions" to the Global Warming problem would amount to us attempting to impose our will upon dynamic which we haven't totally wrapped our heads around yet. I think it's very, very important that we keep our options open:

"Few have understood as well as Clausewitz that Napoleon did not transcend the limits of war, but beat others precisely because of his recognition that Friktion and Wechselwirkung (basically the inevitability of things going wrong during a battle and the Butterfly Effect that results from such incidents to make the circumstances of the battle completely different from what a commander envisioned when drawing up his battle plan) were always at work around him. This is a truth that cannot be grasped by those who think of Napoleon as a kind of military genius able to impress his own will on all parts of war."

So that's what I think about that. I know what you're thinking..."But, Hollywood? How can you not be worried? Napoleon's dead! He can't protect us from Global Warming anymore!"

Well, you know what? You're right. Napoleon is dead. He can't protect us from Global Warming anymore. But I'll tell you who can: