Sunday, February 12, 2006

That warm feeling

It took the Catholic church centuries to agree with Galileo. And it might take centuries for evangelicals in this country to agree with Darwin. So, it was nice to hear that 86 church leaders are siding with science for once and backing an initiative to curb global warming. One of them is the highly successful author of the "purpose driven life" series. Their support stems from the fact that they are in the business of compassion (in lieu of spread of their religion..but that is not the point here). And the poorest regions of the world are being disproportionately affected by natural disasters.
The fact that this came the same week as GWB's statement that America is addicted is interesting, to say the least. It has quite a few Wall Streeters and Cheney conservatives confused and fuming. But the fact remains that the economic right on its own, i.e. without the religious right or the South or some other artificially engineered majority, cannot dream of electing its President. This combined with the insurance industry's awakening (read archives of this blog) suggests that things other than protests and tree hugging might lead to positive action on global warming. At least in the United States. India and China, the upcoming giant spenders of energy are a totally different beast and it is going to take a lot more to convince the governments and peoples of these countries to rein in use of fuels that cause global warming.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fine perspective, this! Tis true about India - I dont know if there's much concern about global warming there. But then one can hardly win elections by curbing global warming alone.