Alexander Cockburn caused quite a stir with his article including skepticism as to CO2 caused global warming. Now the other half of Counterpunch, Jeffrey St. Clair, has added his own opinion of disagreement on the site:
http://www.counterpunch.org/...
I for one appreciate Counterpunch for it's inclusion of a variety of views and the quality of the writing regardless whether I always agree or not. Cockburn is simply a curator or articles, not the final word; I didn't see the point of some of the knee-jerk calls on DKos that Counterpunch was worseless and untrustworthy, I wonder if this will alter that opinion at all.
However, if there is a conspiracy in Global Warming it is in the total corporate media blitz which has managed to co-opt the concerns of the environmental movement and decimate the potency of their original critique. The best article I've read to date, spelling out how the co-opting was done is here:
http://www.zmag.org/...
Seems everyone is an environmentalist today. From the Larry Davids to Sheryl Crow to John McCain. Nothing wrong with a little bit of publicity for Mother Earth, I suppose, but there is still a bit of hypocrisy in shopping at Whole Foods for your organic veggies flown in from Argentina and driving your Prius to the gym. You could probably save the world a little faster by riding a bike and becoming a vegetarian--preferably from a local farm or your own backyard garden--but that's another topic...
I'd rather talk about the topics that threaten to be supplanted by the urgency the Global Warming "Debate" has found. For example Julia Whitty believes the decimation of biodiversity is an even larger threat to our existence and that half the world's species will be extinct by century's end:
http://www.motherjones.com/...
In Gore's green-eyed world, the bulk of the blame is placed on consumers. I don't doubt his concern, but during the Clinton years there was an opportunity to start lecturing US Corporations to take responsibility for their emissions and poisonous waste. Instead we tiptoed out of the water-downed Kyoto and said nothing about conservation or cutting back on our consumerism while turning a blind eye to corporations violating things like the Clean Air Act. I don't mean to single out Gore, but since he is the figurehead...The corporate Green movement is long on talk and short on solutions. The Carbon Trading system extends the market system that got us into this mess. Creating new money making opportunities for financial middlemen and doing little to hold corporations responsible for their bad habits. Cockburn was correct to compare the system to papal indulgences, where "The sinners established a line of credit against bad behavior and could go on sinning." The capitalist system that placed profits (and "job creation" if you believe them) over public health for years in areas like the Southwest, the Appalachian mountains, & the Hudson River will now save us with new technologies and more markets. (Buy stock in Biofuels, folks, and perhaps you'll be rich enough to afford to shop at Whole Foods every week!) Gore and the AGW rely heavily on corporate solutions at the expense of the rest of us. Sure wind farms sound like a good idea, but where will they be placed? On decommissioned golf courses de-beautifying sprawling estates? Naah. How about in a lovely, more ecologically responsible town in Vermont where the per capita income averages $13,000 a year and no one can afford to fight the farms. And I'm sure the Indians will finally prosper from the additional revenue from more nuclear waste on their reservations.
I'm afraid things like equal rights, fair trade, solutions to poverty, sustainable communities, farm management, and CONSERVATION! have gone out the window now that Global Warming is our most pressing concern. Even Green hero Tim Flannery who wrote Weather Makers wants to close off discussion:
"One great potential pitfall on the road to climate stability," he warns, however, "is the propensity for groups to hitch their ideological wagon to the push for sustainability." "When facing a grave emergency," he advises, "it's best to be single-minded."
Thank you, Tim, for your dedication to us. Forgive the sarcasm and frustration this diary may exhibit. Now that we're all in agreement, and finding friends in places we wouldn't have imagined they could be, I just wish there was a little more substantive discussion on the Global Warming Wagon we've jumped on. If indeed, we have the opportunity to make the world a better place, can't we be a little more thoughtful when it comes to some new and some very old ideas?