The grade on Global Warming: When hypocrisy is larger than skepticism

I have been a skeptic all my life. In fact, I am in a state of remission. You name it: the Bible, the Christmas story, Santa Claus, politics, the UN, the Bermuda Triangle, the war in Iraq, even the Paleolithic age seemed iffy at one point -not too bad considering almost all evangelicals, the most rapidly growing Christian church in the world, believe God created the universe less than 6,000 years ago. Nevertheless, we evolve and our horizons broaden depending on the juxtaposition of life experiences, which shape our instincts and decisions as well as those around us.

Writing about global warming is like having sex, the sinful kind, the very experience can be daunting not say risqué. But this is the Right's perspective on it, the rest of world of course, sees it as a responsibility that is both liberating and compromising, knowing that there are still some hearts to be won.

But let's face it; it can also be emotional and unraveling, and that is the difference between good publicity on global warming vs. bad publicity. Preferably sticking to the facts and avoiding the melodramatic overtones that the Right frowns upon, a good article on global warming requires enough special effects to rivet the most skeptical mind and avoid an overboard splash, or it can cause indifference and detachment, just like unilateral sex.

In some of these conservative arenas, the issue of global warming, if not the word itself, has become somewhat synonymous with the word sex, it has been plastered everywhere by the media, just like the symptomatic effect of a highly addictive drug; global warming is something which should not be discussed if you want to be taken seriously by these skeptical groups, and like sex, its corruptive 'power' destabilizes uh.. well, what exactly, the status quo?

In a recent Gallup poll, 63% of Americans believe the effects of global warming are already manifesting or will happen within five years. By a nearly 2:1 margin, Americans believe human activities rather than natural causes explain the rise in the Earth's temperature. But the truth is, attitudes on the environment remain highly partisan: A plurality of Republicans (47%) are positive about environmental conditions, contrasted with only 9% of Democrats, according to the Gallup website. In fact, most Democrats (and independents) are negative about environmental conditions. The same Gallup analysis suggests Democrats are also more likely to be sympathetic to or active in the environmental movement (76% of Democrats vs. 49% of Republicans), and to give priority status to the environment over the economy or energy production.

Sarcasm aside, these numbers are very suggestive. As an environmental convert, they are alarming, because it's my skeptical nature to ponder that the other 52% of Republicans in this poll are either hypocrites or playing possum. Even, when the issue of the environment has always been a Left-leaning issue, the fact is, it was born from the very skirts of capitalism, with traceable roots in the Conservation Movement particularly preached by Theodore Roosevelt, and then eventually sprouted up dramatically in Earth Day in 1970. Sort of like the French Revolution meets Sierra Club. In other words, conservative Republicans influenced its birth, supervised its upbringing and then completely abandoned it, only to be rescued from the dirt by Left-leaning activists in an act of deliverance during the 1960's civil rights movement.

Even today, according to the NY Times, 86 evangelical Christian leaders are now backing a major initiative to fight global warming, yet hard-core Republicans are still skeptical. This could be the single most unifying issue in American politics, not to mention U.S. foreign policy, something the war on terrorism has not been able to accomplish. And I ask myself if not this, then what? And my skeptical nature wanders again, it occurs to me that the Right's stance is a stainless steel shell which can only be transmutable by a collapse on the global economy, which by then, of course, it will be too late to prioritize national dialogue.