A recent edition of the NY Post had an opinion piece wherein the author took to task some scolds who had issues with the message of the movie Interstellar. The basic plot of the movie (I haven’t seen it) is that the Earth is dying and astronauts are sent out to find a new home for humanity. The scolds were upset that climate change wasn’t presented as a cause for the peril that humanity found itself in, that the movie wasn’t a cautionary tale. The op-ed chose to focus on the optimistic message of the film, that human ingenuity won out over peril and difficulty.
A slightly earlier story in The New Yorker magazine, regarding an experiment that focused on a technological solution to global warming and the response from critics. The critics, who managed to get the experiment postponed, worried that a cheap and easy technological solution to global warming might cause politicians to steer away from pursuing limits on carbon emissions.
In other words, a cheap and easy fix to a problem is undesirable because it might obviate the need for a difficult and costly fix. That, to put it frankly, is insane.
Set aside for the moment questions that some have about the validity of the global warming predictions and consider the solution that is being demanded i.e. carbon caps and taxes. On paper, it sounds pretty simple – if human carbon emissions are causing an undesirable change in the climate, the solution is to curtail them. In reality, though, that “solution” is incredibly expensive, destructive and murderous. Furthermore, it won’t work. Anyone who takes a real and honest look at the nations of the world must conclude that many of those nations, especially those that are just now bringing their populations out of poverty, will never impose carbon caps of sufficient austerity to achieve the goals the climate folks say must be achieved. China just now agreed to stop increasing emissions 16 years from now, and it takes a special sort of naivet to think that promise will be kept. India still has a quarter of a billion people without electricity – does anyone really think the nation will agree to keep a quarter of its people in utter poverty? Add Brazil and Russia to the list of nations that will choose prosperity over self-destruction.
Yet despite this reality, many insist the US unilaterally follow through with drastic carbon emission reductions, no matter the cost in money, quality of life or even in lives. Why such masochism? Why not seek technological solutions, especially when carbon caps are so quixotic? Why not try to find a fix that’s less self-flagellating?
About 3 years back, I saw the movie Limitless, which starred Bradley Cooper. The story centers on a struggling writer who chances upon a drug that expands his mental abilities, allowing him not only to finish a book in a matter of days (with brilliant results), but to become a financial wizard. Of course there were down sides to the drug, as a number of burnt-out people proved, and of course there were perils from bad guys who wanted it for themselves. It is a movie, after all. But, at the end of the movie spoiler alert, the main character wins. He succeeds in conquering the downside of the drug, he defeats his nemeses, and is on track to become a US senator. When I walked out of the movie, I realized that this sort of ending is rare. The hero got what some would call an unfair advantage but didn’t end up chastised, humbled or somehow morally Ôenlightened.’ How often does that happen?
The movie Jumper. starring Hayden Christiansen, offers another insight. The main character discovers that he has an ability to instantly jump from one point in the world to any place he can visualize. He can hop from his apartment to the top of the Sphinx to the Colosseum in Rome to a bank vault. Turns out he’s not alone – there are other jumpers out there. There are also those who would thwart them – people referred to as “paladins,” led by Samuel L. Jackson’s character Roland. Roland’s take on jumpers, and I quote:
You think it could go on like this forever? Living like this with no consequences? … There are always consequences!
and
Only God should have this power.
There’s also some bit about how it’s not fair that some can jump but others cannot. The paladins hunted and killed the jumpers merely because they felt jumping was unfair.
One of the arguments I’ve heard for why the USA should unilaterally embrace carbon limits, or take them on to greater degree than developing nations, is that we’ve been the biggest “polluter” over the past century. Thus, we should pay the greatest price. Nowhere in that cost-benefit balance, however, is mention about how much good has come from our “pollution.” The technologies developed here have benefited the entire world. Developing nations don’t need to reinvent the light bulb, or electric power grid technology, or modern power generation methods, or modern medicines, or countless other innovations that stemmed from our industrialization. All that knowledge has been shared with the world, and the world is a better place because of it. Yet, all that doesn’t get added to the positive side of the scale – it’s always about how we must pay the price for our past sins. And, make no mistake, many do consider all the good things that modern society provides us as sins that require atonement.
There’s very likely something in our DNA that finds the notion of cosmic balance appealing. Pop culture revels in it. Literature is chock full of it. The major religions are awash with it. Both modern liberalism and modern conservatism ooze it, albeit in different forms. You have to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues. But… why? What’s wrong with benefiting from something good? Why must there be a karmic price to pay? Why must humanity take the hard road with regard to global warming? Why can’t we embrace a solution that doesn’t punish us for the transgression of making our lives easier and better?
Obviously, we can. We must stop hating ourselves for making our lives and the lives of those around us better. If we need to address problems caused in the process, we certainly needn’t do so in a retributive and punishing manner. If anthropogenic global warming needs to be addressed, we should look to address it technologically. We should continue advancing the human condition as effectively as possible, and expand the benefits of technology throughout the world. And, when problems arise, we needn’t feel that fixing them must include a dose of suffering. We aren’t required to suffer in order to balance some sort of carbon energy karma.
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