bechthros's Journal: an email to my dad about global warming

plenty of people said the holocaust wasn't happening too, einstein. in fact, more informed people denied the holocaust than are denying global warming. don't be so alarmist, they said. they said it in the 30's when it was just getting underway. they said it in the early 40's when we were just getting into the war. they said it all the way until we stumbled upon the emaciated corpses of those we refused to believe were dying. after all, they said it wasn't true. at the very least, it was controversial.

and from the KKK to ahmedinijad, they're still saying it today.

global warming is scary, but it will be much less scary if we come to grips with it while there's still time to do something about it than it will be if we stick our heads in the sand until we're tripping over the corpses. again. we're saying the problem needs to be addressed. you're saying there isn't a problem.

and you have the balls to call US chicken little?

i'm 32 years old. i'm gonna have to deal with the repurcussions of what your generation has done to the planet we were charged with the stewardship of for the rest of my life. you'll be lucky enough to have escaped the consequences of your actions scot free. so it's all well and good for you to treat global warming as academic - for you, it is. you've stuck us with it. good job. pat yourself on the back. buck successfully passed, personal - and, more importantly, corporate - responsibility successfully avoided.

but do me a favor. if you, who are so unimaginitive to swallow that fallacy that all economic progress is inherently carbon-based, and who are so terrified of the consequences of your shortsightedness that you are willing to accuse those who seek to remedy your wrongdoings of the very cowardice you exemplify, can't be responsible enough to admit that overwhelming scientific consensus exists regarding global warming, and if you then insist on succumbing to the profiteering panderers who would soothe you into complacency and whisper into your cowardly ears the sweet, sweet nothings that you so long to hear, that the holocaust just isn't real... ...then SHUT UP. and may God have mercy on your soul. for those who follow you on the earth will have nothing but amazed contempt that you could carve the words "never again" into a stone monument, but lack the courage to believe them in your heart.

so forward that, o brave armchair Exxon warrior. you can quote me.

All I need is the CO2 absorption cycle of bamboo

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And a few calculations- and I'll have a damn good entry for the Virgin Industries $25 million global warming reversal X-Prize. My guess at current knowledge is around 107,000 acres of North African, Australian, and Baja California desert, with energy-generating moisture farming windmills for the initial phases until the bamboo rain forests get going pretty well, but that's more of a guesstimate than actual figures.