Consider This

By Bergin Parks on 07/06/2012 @ 01:00 PM

Tags: Energy, Environment

Climate change, climate disruption, global warming – whatever you want to call it - is a complex system of feedback mechanisms wrapped in a shroud of causes and effects. Both natural and man made, it is impossible to isolate any singular weather event as a direct result of climate change, because there are too many variables at play. Despite the fact that the warnings climate scientists have been citing for decades are now being manifest before our very eyes, both the media and the American public seem to be content with hyper-political, bipolar rhetoric and punditry.

We live in the Anthropocene era. Think about that for a minute. “The influence of human behavior on the Earth's atmosphere in recent centuries is so significant as to constitute a new geological era for its lithosphere.”

Military commanders assert that future wars will be waged in maritime, not terrestrial theatres, as a result of sea level rise and glacial melt. If the Pentagon is thinking strategically about climate change, shouldn’t that be a wake up call to the populace whose interests they are sworn to protect?

While Congress remains in a protracted and embarrassing state of paralysis on this issue, the Pentagon acknowledges the dangers of a changing climate and plans accordingly.

What could possibly account for this seeming contradiction?