The Case of the Environment
By: Geo (February 7th, 2010) 
December 2009, one place that captured the imagination and attention of the whole world: Copenhagen, Denmark. Representatives from 183 countries met for a 12-day Copenhagen Climate Summit to try to come to agreement on how to best reduce mankind’s “Carbon Footprint” on our world. Though they finally ended up making a toothless and non-binding “Copenhagen Accord”, the summit was largely a failure. Despite a big and expensive build-up to the summit and long negotiations, they could not even agree upon or set targets for emission cuts of greenhouse gases! The developing countries were not ready to commit themselves while the developed ones had too much at stake! China, the world’s biggest polluter played the waiting game and made no commitments, thus frustrating everyone!
With Heads of States, activists, protestors, opinion makers, and not to forget, the media personnel et cetera in and around everywhere in Copenhagen, the climate there surely got very hot! But with some kind of an accord in place, they surely had the balls rolling for the Mexico Summit in 2010! The best part about the accord was that both India and China were on board! How it would all progress has to be only seen!
Since the late 90s, the Global Warming warnings have caught the attention of the media and there are all kinds of reports related with this coming up ranging from doomsday predictions to absolute negation of the warnings! I have always viewed with skepticism claims of scientists, be it about the origin or about the end. They delve into so much speculation and their findings are based on so many assumptions that it always appeared wise to take their statements with a pinch of salt! Also many of their claims are not without the influence of their own worldviews and convictions! Primarily, the approach to the climate crisis is purely humanistic, evolutionary and leaves no room for divine revelation or preservation in the climate change equation! The view that is most commonly held and in fact celebrated is that our world is a result of blind chance over time and therefore very fragile and subject to be knocked into a catastrophe by minor influences.
Now was there truly something in all these to be worried about? Were our actions going to wipe out our planet? These and many more thoughts were running through my mind as I continued to read some articles on these issues in a weekly and sipped through the frappe and I waited for three young girls who had asked to meet me up at Soul Café!
Mandy: Hello sir. Hope we are not too late!
Me: Hi! Well, I was occupied. There is so much happening around us in this world and so much to catch up!
Mandy: So what are you catching up with today? Copenhagen!?
Me: Bull’s eye. That was precisely what I was reading and thinking about!
Mandy: It’s sad that the nations were not able to come to any substantial conclusion.
Meanwhile, the other two girls Nita and Shelly placed the order!
Me: It’s not as simple as it seems. Cutting the usage of fossil fuels and upgrading technology of current plant and machinery involves lot of cost and time. And then, it is not just a handful of establishments that the countries have to deal with to make this happen. The Agreement would demand action on every factory, every car and anything and everything that emits carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases! It is going to be a massive exercise!
Nita: What are greenhouse gases?
Mandy: These are gases like carbon dioxide, methane et cetera. These gases do not let heat escape from the earth’s atmosphere. Actually these are the gases that keep our planet within habitable temperatures but lately, the amount of greenhouse gases has increased in the atmosphere by irresponsible and rampant burning of fossil fuels and as a result, the temperature of the globe is slowly increasing as more than required heat remains trapped in the atmosphere! This is called the “Greenhouse Effect”.
Me: Well quite to the point explanation Mandy. Wonderful!
Nita: What are these fossil fuels?
Mandy: Nothing but petroleum fuels like oil, coal and natural gas!
Shelly: Showing off huh, Mandy?! (We all laughed. She perhaps was beginning to!) I seriously feel that there is a lot of hue and cry being made about this issue unnecessarily!
Mandy: Oh come on! Do you think the governments have nothing else to do! All the world leaders were there for the Copenhagen Summit because all of them seriously know and understand the grim situation facing mankind!
Me: Actually Shelly, you may be partly justified in your fears! After reading some of the things, I see unseen undercurrents in addition to the main flow on the top that everyone is seeing.
Mandy: What undercurrents? I think the undercurrents will start when the icebergs will melt! Something needs to be done immediately or coastal cities like our Mumbai will come under the sea!
Nita: Like Atlantis!
Shelly: That’s too much! You know about the Atlantis but have not checked out what fossil fuels are?
Me: It happens. Myths are more popular and credible than facts in our country! Moreover, we really can’t blame anyone these days for being ill-informed. Actually there is so much information in the waves that one can easily miss much of it! Coming back to the undercurrents, have you heard of “Carbon Credits”?
Mandy: I have read about that. But I did not try to understand what it means!
Me: It’s not precisely defined as of now. Carbon Credit will eventually be understood as a certain quantity of Carbon in form of greenhouse gases that an industry will be allowed to emit e.g. one Carbon Credit could be equal to an emission allowance of one ton of carbon dioxide. If an industry is allowed 10 Carbon Credits, its emission has to be 10tons of carbon dioxide or below. If its emission exceeds 10tons, then it has to buy Carbon Credits from other firms that may have excess credits with them or pay a penalty for the excess emission!
Mandy: Excellent! That seems like a sure shot way to bringing down the global temperatures much faster than expected! Make them pay! Everyone will understand the language of money! Whoever thought of such a system is truly brilliant!
Me: Excellent idea for sure! Only problem is that a market for Carbon Credit exists only because of an artificial scarcity in the right to produce energy induced by government’s imposition of a cap! It surely looks like the brainchild of a bureaucrat! In a country like ours, it will be like re-entering inspector raj - the age of red-tapism and bureaucracy!
Nita: I came here for some real practical discussions, but I feel like I am attending lectures of chemistry!
(We all couldn’t help but laugh! Sadly, Nita’s sentiments were similar to those of most people on this planet!)
Mandy: It has to be a lot government controlled to begin with else things at such a level, how can they be implemented!
Me: The problem is not just there. Have you heard of Al Gore?
Nita: Yes, the ex-Vice President of the USA! He was deputy to Bill Clinton!
Shelly: For once, someone is giving answers! I started worrying that you might sleep off!!
Me: Yeah! That’s Al Gore. There was a time when he had no money to even campaign! Today he is rubbing shoulders with the multi-millionaires of USA. He has shares in Chicago Climate Exchange and the European Climate Exchange which are the primary exchanges currently for trading of Carbon Credits!
Mandy: That’s foresight! He had wisdom enough to invest in the right places!
Me: I will not deny his foresight! The day the government makes it mandatory for all industries and emitters to be a part of the Carbon Credit trading system, Al Gore will become the richest man on the planet since he is one of the owners of the Exchange itself!
Shelly: How can one man become an owner of an Exchange!
Me: It is possible for people to have companies that have stake on Exchanges. What’s more intriguing is that he is part of an NGO that is pressing on the governments to make Carbon Credit system compulsory for everyone and is pressing for stringent norms across the globe for the same!
Shelly: So you mean to say that Al Gore is pressurizing governments to make laws that make his Exchange to become more active and flourish! Is that not wrong use of his name and clout!
Mandy: Profit is not perhaps the man’s motive! He is only pressing for a better habitable climate for our descendants!
Me: Yeah perhaps! But I wonder why he charges six digits fees just to tell it!
Shelly: What! He charges so much for the speeches he makes! That’s preposterous!
Me: See, Mandy, what I was trying to say through all of it was that there are huge economic interests of groups and individuals behind the whole move towards a Global Climate Agreement. It is not just anthropogenic as it appears. There are huge commercial interests of forces that are not in the forefront.
Shelly: I have a feeling that global warming itself is the biggest scam of the millennium!
Mandy: Oh come on! How prejudiced can anyone ever get! This is for real. The global temperatures have risen, the glaciers are receding and the water levels are rising!
Shelly: Actually since we had the last Ice Age, when the entire globe had sunk to sub-zero temperatures, temperatures has been gradually increasing every century and the sea level too has been rising at about 7- 8inches every hundred years! So what’s new about it in this century! Moreover, most of the records of the last 20 years show increase in the ground temperature during the period but strangely the atmospheric temperature remained fairly constant in the same time period! In the ground temperatures too, the urban and rural temperatures show large variation! So is it a case of false alarms! One needs to think.
Me: Moreover, solar activity has been high in the past twenty years that the global warming alarm bells have been ringing!
Shelly: Yeah! I was going to come to that. There is a big correlation between solar activity and global temperatures. I think there is hardly any human interference in the temperature changes observed. I think there is hardly anything much we can do about it anyways and still we are making it sound as if we can control it!
Nita: Perhaps, people are only trying to reduce the damage caused!
Me: But at what cost! The Kyoto Protocol, which is the basis of all these fossil fuel usage cuts, demands a 30% reduction in usage by the USA! The economic ramifications can throw prices of fuels beyond the reach of the common man, increase prices of commodities, cause the shutting down of companies and thus result in vast unemployment! And all because of what! Misinterpretations!!
Mandy: What if these findings are true and we are surely speeding up the end of our living with such reckless usage of fossil fuels! And then, even if these global warming predictions are not true, my take is that there is no harm in becoming more responsible about our planet!
Me: Absolutely. I agree with you there. In fact I believe we need to be faithful stewards! We are supposed to take care of this planet as its caretakers. Not just the planet, I think we are responsible for it even for the sake of every other creature living on this planet, be it plants, animals, birds, fishes, reptiles or insects!
Nita: I have had enough of this environment talk! Mandy, will you please shift to the reason why we came here for!
Shelly: Wait Nita. I think this is interesting and important.
Mandy: Yeah. We should take care of Mother Earth!
Me: Well, let me clarify myself a bit more at this juncture. When you say Mother Earth, it surely means much more than just a title. It has connotations rooted in paganism, mysticism and feminism!
Mandy: Oh my. I think that you are now going off on a tangent!
Me: No, this is called the Gaia hypothesis!
Nita: As if what we have discussed so far is not enough! What is this now!
Me: Gaia hypothesis is the consideration of Earth as an organism. In fact as a deity! All life forms on this planet are only a small part of this one spirit goddess Gaia!
Shelly: Oh my God! And what does Gaia actually mean? Is it Greek?
Me: Yes. Gaia was the name of a Greek goddess. The supporters of the Gaia hypothesis speak against the Judeo-Christian concept of definition of the life. The concept that God assigned man to rule over the earth has resulted in man exploiting and abusing the planet. Monotheism, they say has separated man from his connection with the earth!
Mandy: There seems to be some substance in their argument!
Me: If the earth is an organism, I wonder why it doesn’t reproduce! The very definition of organism by science requires it to reproduce its own kind!
Shelly: Now that’s what I would call substance in the argument!
Me: Let’s not fight about it. We are all trying to understand various view points and come to reasonable conclusions.
Nita: Tell me one thing sir. Isn’t more carbon dioxide in the air good in one way? Plants need carbon dioxide. More carbon dioxide will make them grow faster. Isn’t it?
Me: Well, just like more oxygen will not make us grow, more carbon dioxide perhaps cannot make plants grow more!
Shelly: I think I have read somewhere that with more carbon dioxide plants grow faster and need lesser water!
Me: I don’t know about that. Doesn’t sound very logical! For me what is reasonable and logical is to believe that we, including this planet, are not an accident. God created everything, beautifully and wonderfully and has entrusted us with this planet to protect it, preserve it, work on it, manage it, subdue it!
Mandy: Subdue it! I don’t really agree with much of what you said but all the more with that word – subdue!
Me: The very fact that we are the only organism thinking about saving this planet, the only creature thinking about saving the other creatures is a sign that we are superior to the others. If we are not, then we are not obliged in any way to protect this planet or any other creatures. The moral and ethical platform that we use to talk about saving the environment immediately confirms the biblical view that we are made in the image and likeness of God!
Mandy: So you believe that we are superior to everything else!
Me: The Bible asks us, “What is the profit of gaining the whole word and losing one’s own soul!” That makes me and you more valuable than the whole world! But at the same time, it doesn’t absolve me from the responsibility of taking care of this beautiful world which God gave to all of us – the world in which he took pleasure himself! The Bible says that after each day of Creation, God saw that it was good! Just like I am to take care of my own body, I am also responsible for this planet and therefore I should try not to abuse or exploit it.
Mandy: So you agree with the direction of the Copenhagen Accord.
Me: Does my opinion matter?! But if you ask me, I have nothing against people who try to save the environment, but I have my reservations about at what cost? You can’t advocate it treading over the lives of countless people! You can’t call yourselves an environmentalist when you have no concern for the suffering and misery of fellow humans. You can’t become just green and turn a blind eye to the river of red resulting from the abortion of millions of babies!
Shelly: I agree. We can’t even take care of our kind and here we are trying to save every other kind! Such an irony!
Me: In fact the Bible, the only book that speaks about the beginning as well as the end also goes on to say that when God is going to draw the world to a close, He will prelude it with calamities unparalleled. Ultimately, God will burn this whole earth with fire and then create a new heaven and a new earth!
Mandy: And you believe all that ridiculous talk!
What followed was a long talk helping my skeptic friend at least have an understanding of why I believe what I believe. I was not sure how Mandy was taking it, but the air was much more relaxed now than before.
Me: Since God has already proclaimed what will happen to the earth, I think our heaving and sweating to preserve it is not as important an exercise as it seems! If the Creator has a plan with the planet, whatever we do to it, He will preserve it for what He intends it for! Again I repeat, that doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility to this planet, but it surely does make me question inventions of processes and systems established only to benefit a few people in the name of Carbon Credit or whatever!
Shelly: I think, first we should stop wasting food, stop using gas guzzling vehicles, switch off lights when we are not using it, and reduce blasting the AC! These are all measures towards saving the environment!
Me: Saving the environment! We can only try to maintain it!
Nita: Mandy, are we going to discuss about what we actually came here for?!
Me: Ok Mandy! Tell me what is it that you actually came here for?
Mandy: Give me some time. There is a “Greenhouse Effect” on my brain now! (We all laughed)
As they ordered for some snacks, I got myself into reading about Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance” and his stock options in Google and Apple, his venture capital firm and his cable television company (Current TV)! He surely is by far the most enterprising among all US leaders in history – but I am sure, not without a huge “Carbon Footprint”!!
More from Mandy and her friends is coming up! Till then adieu Soul Café! God bless.
Tags: Al Gore, earth, environment, Global Warming