In this season it is important to look beyond our immediate
material concerns and appraise our existence in a larger context. In an effort
to help accomplish this I have recast a classic editorial to address a modern
concern that is just as important to all organisms living on this planet as the
existence of Santa Clause was to little Virginia O’hanlon 117 years ago.
"DEAR
EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Global
Warming, and even if there were, man can have nothing to do with it.
Papa says, 'If you see it posted in A Quantum of Idleness it's so.'
Please tell me the truth; is there a Global Warming
and are people at least partly responsible?"
Somewhere in America."
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is Global
Warming. It exists as surely as greed, avarice and gluttony exist in this all
too often cruel world, and you know that they abound and give to your life its greatest
sorrow. Alas! How nice would be the world if there were no Anthropogenic Global
Warming. It would be as pleasant as if there were a world full of VIRGINIAS . If the damage
we humans do to our atmosphere goes unchecked, our world will become a dismal
place indeed, as dreary as a life that knows no poetry and no romance that make
tolerable our existence. As a life without these things to leaven it would know
no enjoyment, except in sense and sight, so will our world become an unpleasant
place, bringing unbearable suffering to mankind. The congenial climate that has
allowed life to thrive these many millions of years will be thrown dangerously
out of whack.
Not believe in Global Warming!
You might as well not believe in atoms and molecules! You might get your papa
to hire men to look over the global temperature record taken on Christmas Eve
to catch the Global Warming trend, but even if they did not see Global Warming in
that small sample of data, what would that prove? Nobody sees Global Warming on
any given day, but that is plenty of long term evidence of Global Warming. Some
of the most real things in the world are what men and children can see only through
the dedicated analysis of complex and long-term data. Did you ever directly see
an electron in action? Of course you did not, but that's no proof that it is
not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and
unseeable in the world without first looking carefully at what the world does
reveal to us.
You can present some men with all
the data in the world and explain how what we have done and are doing is
changing the climate of our planet, yet they close their eyes and plug their
ears to keep out information that the find unpleasant. One hopes that repeated
exposure to the truth through reasoned argument and the presentation of data
can push aside their curtain of ignorance to allow them to recognize that
careful and dedicated study of our atmosphere has revealed the truth behind
global warming to the scientific community.
The current Global Warming trend
not caused by man? Dear God, if only it were true! A thousand years from now, Virginia , nay, ten times
ten thousand years from now, our descendants, should any exist, will continue to
wonder why we acted as we did as caretakers of this fragile world that is being
handed to you and your young friends in much poorer condition than it was
handed to me and mine.