(Somewhere in Southern California) We have come to accept the daily onslaught of media stories reminding us that global warming will doom us all if mankind does not change its ways. Some of us have responded by trying to conserve electricity, by buying a smaller (or hybrid) car, or by contributing to environmental organizations.
But there are some among us who have succombed to the excitement, the thrill, the danger of being on the precipice of global doom. These are the global warming addicts, who crave daily fixes of the latest horror scenarios that will accompany global warming.
EcoEnquirer talked with one recovering addict, who we will call "Jason". Jason is 23 years old, and started his addiction to the dark side of global warming in high school. The girl's PE teacher (substituting for the science teacher, who was on trial for sexual misconduct) told the students, in hushed tones, of the evil that humanity is unleasing upon itself. Our use of fossil fuels to heat and cool our homes, drive to and from work, and all other frivolous activities that only humans seem to engage in, were pushed upon the students as an evil that we must all work to avoid.
"At first, it was just a mild interest in climate change..a little warming here, a little less sea ice there", Jason recalled. "But then it got more serious. Melting ice caps, rapidly rising sea levels, tsunamis and super-hurricanes destroying cities....I was hooked."
"Small disasters would no longer interest me. Who really cares about a few extinct species, or the change of a maple forest to an oak forest over 50 years? It was the intense stuff that I sought out more and more.", said Jason.
Jason obsessively hung around movie theaters, looking for strangers to share the excitement with, then watching "The Day After Tomorrow" over and over again. When the movie came out on DVD, Jason was able to watch it continuously in the privacy of his own bedroom. Sometimes he would excitedly engage in global warming discussions with people on the internet -- people he didn't even know.
Jason was finally able to get help for his addiction through the outreach of those who have shunned global warming scare stories as overly-hyped efforts to ruin civilization or spread socialism. Those few brave souls have come to be known as 'The Skeptics'.
Shunned by most scientists as 'flat-earthers', The Skeptics have emphasized the extreme complexity of the climate system, and the improbability that we understand it well enough to say whether humanity's carbon dioxide emissions will cause any serious consequences.
"But just as important, my Skeptic counselor helped me to not feel bad about using energy any more", said Jason. "I realized that billions of humans -- real people -- depend upon all of the benefits that fossil fuels bring to our lives. Humans must pollute in order to survive. And just as we have greatly reduced our worst pollution problems in the past with new technology, so we will again with new and cleaner energy sources, brought about through research."
Meanwhile, the pushers of the extreme climate change stories -- environmental groups like Environmental Defense, and many news outlets like the UK's newspaper, the Independent -- continue to import large quantities of 'scientific predictions' from climate scientists. While still legal, maybe it is time to for our society to examine whether this is the kind of 'entertainment' we want our children to be exposed to.
How many more 'Jasons' are out there, experimenting with increasingly dangerous levels of environmental excitement, pushing themselves past their own "tipping point"? We fear that our Jason is just the tip of the iceberg.
[You can learn more about the dangers of climate porn here.]
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