One Year Later in a Hot, Flat, Crowded World:
6 – Dealing With Climate Change Detractors 1

Whether the climate is changing or not, here in Glendale, California, air quality should be much better.

In his 2008 book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Thomas Friedman takes on global warming skeptics. He quotes scientists and United Nations studies, explains variations in the earth’s orbit and rotational tilt, and goes so far as to categorize the sources of carbon in the atmosphere.

Friedman and others fear that global warming could lead to major disasters because of exponential climate effects. The Day After Tomorrow (2004) used this thesis for a film plot centered on the sudden start of a new ice age (featuring scenes of New York City deluged by a huge wave that rapidly turns into solid ice, and many other impressive special effects).

Reading the book’s attempts to answer global warming critics, I was reminded of Ezra Klein’s recent call for a comprehensive Q&A on health care reform. He cited an existing resource for climate change as a positive example: “Grist’s How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic series.”

The Grist post is a long list of questions linked to answers (which readers may or may not agree with) organized by topic, stages of denial, types of arguments, and level of sophistication in the climate change debate – check it out.

Daily Show fans interested in this topic can check out Jon Stewart’s interview with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu on capping carbon emissions, or earlier in the show, Stewart’s much raunchier analysis (a “children’s segment” not suitable for children) of negotiations surrounding the proposed cap-and-trade bill (The American Clean Energy and Security Act).

Near the hot, flat, and crowded Los Angeles Basin, it doesn’t matter whether fossil fuels are causing global warming. Local inhabitants still suffer from the effects of living with the most toxic air in the United States. The latest EPA report (summary on Legal Planet, video on KABC) says Los Angeles County residents have the highest risk in the nation of developing cancer caused by breathing vehicle emissions.

Why wouldn’t all of us in Glendale, Los Angeles and Southern California want to do everything possible to stop using fossil fuels and start using clean, renewable energy for transportation? The downside of global warming is just another entry on the long list of reasons to change our ways.