Politics: Climate Change/Global Warming

The warming of the Earth is increasing at an astounding rate. Global warming is one of the largest environmental concerns at the moment and for good reason. Every year the earth is getting warmer and warmer and this is causing a chain-reaction of negative effects. Global warming occurs when heat is trapped by gases in the atmosphere. Instead of being released into space, the heat stays in the Earth’s atmosphere. The main gases that are trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere are carbon dioxide, methane, sulfate aerosol, and HFC-23. Methane is 25x more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, HFC-23 is 12,000x more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat, and sulfate aerosol is 24,000x more effect than carbon dioxide at trapping heat.

Carbon dioxide and methane are natural gases that occur in nature. The problem is that we’re creating an excess of them. Cattle farms are creating much more methane than what would naturally be produced because we are producing too many cattle for consumption. Carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere because we’re burning and cutting down forests larger than the size of New York State every year. The carbon dioxide is then released into the atmosphere. Warmer oceans will absorb less carbon dioxide, warmer soils will release more carbon dioxide, and melting ice caps will reflect less of the sun’s heat. When ultra violet radiation hits a surface like snow or ice, it still has a short wavelength and can escape through the gases into space. When it hits dirt, concrete, and anything else that isn’t reflective like snow it’s wavelength becomes longer and cannot escape through the atmosphere.

The solution to the above problems is a complicated one. It seems that it would be simple i.e. eliminate all of these emissions, but it’s far more complex than that. Unless every American is willing to become a vegetarian those cattle farms aren’t going anywhere and neither is the methane they produce. How could we stop cutting down forests for timber? What are you going to write on? What is going to support the walls of your home? Carbon dioxide and methane alone would most likely still progress global warming which would cause the above to occur to. However, it is possible to stop global warming. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was five years old and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything at all. In fact, I personally find eating meat disgusting. There are many benefits vegetarians enjoy that could convert meat eaters. The price of meat could be increased so that instead of eating meat every day of the week, families only had it once or twice a week. This would equal less cattle and more crops, effectively reducing the methane in the atmosphere and creating a carbon sink. Why not create a material to place in asphalt, paint, and shingles that would reflect the ultraviolet light at the same wavelength that it entered the atmosphere and making it mandatory to include it in all roofing and asphalt materials? Unfortunately there are no quick fixes for global warming and every country has to contribute. There is no one policy that can be changed because there are too many other variables contributing to global warming, but the every nation working together in unison would be able to overcome it – it’s just a matter of doing it.

Money, Politics, and Happiness

A major problem with America is how we measure our total net worth. The gross national product system, or G.N.P for short, is used because it signifies the amount of money made by American companies overall, not just within national boundaries. This way an American company that outsources in Bangladesh can have their profits totaled up with the rest of America’s profits. It is used because it makes it look like America earns more than it actually does. After all, only the high level executives are the American’s earning money. However, this may not be the case. The American company does not have to be owned by an American. An American company owned by a Japanese company that outsources its work to Indonesia would still have its profits added to America’s G.N.P.

Another drawback of G.N.P. is that it measures everything as a positive. Let’s say that there was an oil spill and it took roughly $20 million to clean up. That money would be added to the G.N.P. – raising it by $20 million. To me, that goes beyond the realm of being counterintuitive and into the realm of absurdity. The government is spending money, yet it records it as a profit.

As I stated in an entry before this one, Americans have to relinquish their obsession for money and start doing things that make sense. Why would anyone actively try to prevent environmental disasters if the money spent fixing the damage is just going to make it look like America made more money than it did? It is a fact that the happiness of Americans peaked in the 1950’s. That’s at a point in time when American’s had far less material objects than they do now, yet they were happier. The average American today believes that money will bring happiness. This is an illusion – we only want what we cannot have. Once we have something, we toss it into the corner and think about the other things we don’t yet have. So wouldn’t it be more desirous for Americans to want something that is hard to achieve such as love, happiness, and reversing the negative affects we’ve caused to the environment? It would take a lot longer to achieve than standing in line and paying a few hundred dollars for a new gadget and the benefits would last a lifetime.

The solution is to start using a method to measure our national profit that uses both positives AND negatives. That way we have a true sense of how much we’re making. After all, all we’re doing is lying to ourselves when we present that number as a profit. Adding negatives into the mix lowers our numbers, but gives America more motivation to make more money and reduce the negatives i.e. things that affect the environment negatively. This alone may be the push America needs to start combating global warming, the use of dangerous chemicals, and the use of nonrenewable resources. If more money won’t motivate our money-obsessed country, then I don’t know what will.