Letter: Goldberg should follow his own example
I read Jonah Goldberg’s recent column with some initial sympathy. I also think that exaggeration, hyperbole and unconsidered discourse can be poisonous. I also think that it is critical to make meaningful distinctions.
To make accurate and useful distinctions, you need to be in possession of both the context and the facts. For going on 50 years, scientists have been telling us that if we did nothing about carbon dioxide emissions, we would be in deep trouble. The physical evidence has supported them every step of the way, while the world failed to make meaningful inroads on carbon emissions.Goldberg says that liberals are not making distinctions and are overstating the urgency. However, conservatives (and many liberals) have fatally failed to distinguish economic theory from physical reality. We are in fact in an existential crisis and an extinction event.
Maybe Goldberg doesn’t consider the extinction of any species other than his own to be worth mentioning. Maybe he figures that at least a few humans and little adaptable critters and plants will make it through, even if our biosphere is mostly devastated, so global warming isn’t actually an existential threat. Maybe he can contemplate the collapse of civilization and say, oh well, that’s not so bad. More likely, he doesn’t understand the science or the probable outcomes if we don’t address the problem with everything we’ve got. Right now.
It would be great if people, the media, politicians, etc. were more intellectually responsible, but Goldberg’s column didn’t set any kind of example.
Cynthia Lepthien
Support Local Journalism
Eagle
