Monday, May 7, 2007

A good comment I composed

There was this story I once heard about a knight and a monk. The knight asks the monk if all the praying and studying and chastity and all that other Christian stuff is worth it. He goes on to tell the monk that he enjoys life and does whatever he pleases, because what if there is no god and no afterlife. So the monk looks and him and simply says, “But what if there is?”

Global warming represents this picture to me perfectly. Those who are so up in arms about it are taking a leap of faith and damning everyone else over something that may or may not even happen. It has taken on the semblance of a religion, whether they want to admit it or not. Some guy came into my shop last month and basically gave us all that exact argument.

If I was a betting man I’d put money on global warming resulting in extended growing seasons and milder winters which will allow for lower heating costs. But really, with how very little we know about this stuff (and it is VERY little), no one knows for sure and therefore no one should jump to insane conclusions.

As to the point about ridding ourselves of technology, the richer countries get, the better tech they have, and the cleaner they become. Energy becomes cleaner and more efficient to produce, food becomes more plentiful and easier to grow in substantial volumes, and capitalism pushes us towards more and better of everything.