Accepting Reality, Albeit Grudgingly

ONE OF THE INNUMERABLE Rush Limbaugh imitators, another wealth at any cost climate change deny-er, Bill Valentine, said something to the effect that conservatives consider carbon dioxide to be normal and natural, human breath, while liberals consider it to be poison, and falsely accuse it of ruining the ecosystem. Apparently unknown to said conservative talker is that carbon dioxide is indeed poison to humans, which is why we expel it from our bodies, just as we expel feces, urine, and sweat, all poisons. (Try inhaling pure carbon dioxide, and find out what happens.) The same commentator noted that liberals now accuse carbon of being the guilty party, whereas they formerly accused carbon dioxide, a sure sign of the liberal conspiracy to perpetrate the global warming hoax. What's really happened, of course, is that the liberal alleged conspirators have merely simplified the paradigm, to facilitate conservative comprehension. Carbon dioxide consists of two chemical elements, carbon, and oxygen. Oxygen does no harm to the air, it turns out, but merely augments it, since nineteen and a half percent of Earth's atmosphere it composed of oxygen anyway, is not poisonous to humans, and adding a bit more doesn't seem to do any harm, and in fact adding oxygen to the atmosphere enhances human respiration and athletic performance. But carbon, according to nature's plan, constitutes only a minute fraction of the air, something on the order of one hundred parts per million. Carbon is intended by nature to be cycled and recycled through the atmosphere, in very small quantities, but not to be increased continuously by human industrial activity. Thus, in 1900, the carbon content was approximately three hundred parts per million, and now it is four hundred, at least four times the amount that adhered for millions of years, proir to the advent of the industrial revolution. In order to deny global warming/climate change, one must either contend that no significant amount of carbon is being added to the air, or that the element carbon does not possess the heat retention characteristics laid out by the periodic table of elements and the science fo chemistry. Liberals are also accused of changing the term "global warming" to "climate change" to further confuse the issue. Again, the change in terminology is simply a tool to faciliate the understanding of conservatives, since the impact of carbon will actually result in a cooling of some parts of the earth, and a warming of others. Thus the term "global warming" is less accurate than the term 'climate change". Europe, for instance, will experience an ice age, as cold melt water from the polar ice caps cools the gulf stream, which will compromise the gulf stream's ability to carry warm air currents into Europe. All this simplification seems to have only limited efficacy. They still don't understand, or refuse to. To admit to climate change would force conservatives to admit the need for change in their behavior, which, of cousre, is contrary to the basic tenets of conservativism. Surveys indicate that one half of republicans deny climate change. Not long ago, the number was two thirds. Two thirds of the American people now accept reality, which, for Americans is rather impressive. but it isn't good enough, at least, not yet.