when only prudence matters

Five or six years ago I was in a disgusting sleeping bag on the floor of a hotel somewhere in the far reaches of the United States. I honestly cannot remember where I was, but it doesn't really matter at all. Being nowhere is always best. That night I overheard, and then interrupted, a conversation I will never forget. It was between a man who, at the time, I had great respect for, and a girl whom I respected for approximately twenty minutes when I first met her, then came to despise greatly. Nonetheless, at that moment I stuck up for her.

The man was a Christian pro-life activist with a lot of problems, and the girl was a self-righteous hippie Christian with blue hair that stank like she had planted something in it which had long ago turned soggy, and was in a state of severe decay. Let's call the girl Sarah and the man Brian.

The conversation was this: Sarah's sister was (and possibly still is) a deeply depressed lesbian addicted to pain killers and slicing her forearms with scissors. Brian, being the all-knowing God fearing man he was, was trying to explain to Sarah that God predestined people to either be those who will enter into "the kingdom of heaven," or one of those who wouldn't, and that her sister was obviously predestined to live a godless life and then go to hell where God had intended her to be. I think that maybe, in his own twisted way, Brian was trying to comfort her by insisting that she was doing all she could for her sister, and that God had simply intended for her to live a hopeless life.

I listened for quite some time before I got so fuming mad I couldn't contain myself. Everyone was surprised when I shot up out of my pretended sleep and started yelling. Essentially, this is what I said:

"Brian, what fucking difference does it make man? I don't even know why you're talking about this. The Christian bible says to go out and preach the gospel and help people right? So if you want to be a Christian like you say you are, why don't you just do that and stop bullshitting about things you couldn't possibly know the real answer to. Predestination might be true, and it might not be true, and you won't know for sure until you're there to see for yourself. Are you trying to justify Christians just sitting back and doing nothing because 'it's all predestined anyhow, so you can't change anything?' We can both agree that's rediculous. There are things that just aren't worth talking about because true or not, our actions should remain the same. If Sarah's sister is depressed and hopeless, Sarah has both a duty and a desire to help her - predestined to fail or not. How about some encouragement or some helpful advice, instead of some BS doom and gloom attitude based on a rediculous presumption of predestination that can't help, but can only hurt the situation?"

The other night I ended up in a similar conversation about "global warming" and the "runaway greenhouse effect." Two friends of mine, one a physics major, and one a geologist were arguing about whether global warming or a run-away greenhouse effect were occuring, and indeed whether it was even possible. Both had compelling arguments. The physics major was citing a mathematical equation stating the earth did not have enough mass to support a run away greenhouse effect. The geologist cited the amount of carbon being released artificially (not though natural means) by mankind, along with other unnatural toxins, lumped on top of deforestation which is the Earth's built-in air filter, then talked about the Earth's weather cycles through history gathered from core samples taken from the north and south poles. Fascinated by this argument between two full-fledged geniuses, I sat for a while before I again interrupted with a similar speech.

We can argue forever about things like this, but ultimately they are beyond our current ability to fully understand, so nobody will be able to proove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their standpoint is the right one. Is global warming a threat we are creating, or is it the Earth's natural cycle? Can we, or are we, altering the climate, or are we doomed no matter what? Scientists can argue to the death, but nobody lived through the last million (or hundred thousand) years of the Earth's life, and the people doing the bickering won't be around to catch the very dire effects of global warming, or the climate cycle, if there will be any to be seen. And even if the earth floods completely and New York, now under ten feet of water, sees 120 degree summers, they will argue whether we caused it, or it is a naturally occuring phenomenon that we were powerless to prevent. How do we make decisions when faced with opposing viewpoints and an impossibility of prooving either one to be correct?

We should take prudence into consideration.

What harm does cutting our carbon emissions cause? None. The "financial ruin" story is a myth written by oil companies and American car manufacturers who are saying, "we like things just the way they are, thank you very much." I'm sure wagon salesmen and horse farmers got pretty pissed off when Henry Ford rolled out his model T, but with every new technology comes the emergence of a new industry. Instead of corporations forcing things to remain the same, they have to be foreward thinking and innovative, or risk loosing everything to those that are.

On the flip side of cutting emissions is doing absolutely nothing. What possible harm could this cause? According to many scientists, this could be a severe change in life as we know it: hotter summers, colder winters, hurricanes more powerful than we have ever seen, lakes and rivers drying up, New York City under water.

When faced with two un-provable options we must employ the long forgotten tactic of erring on the side of caution. Just as in the conversation about pre-destination, the conversation on climate change won't be put to rest until we wait it out and see what happens. And even then, it may continue. But the conversation itself can be dangerous if one side proposes taking a certain action (in this case, the "action" is inaction), solely based on their own opinion, that could possibly give rise to a disastrous outcome, whereas the alternative poses fewer, if any, risks at all. Those arguing against global warming may have good points scientifically, but what are they really insisting we do? Are they honestly arguing that we should do nothing to cut our emissions of carbon and other harmful chemicals into the atmosphere? Are they really saying that it is okay for us to continue to pollute and destroy with the same magnitude? Was Bryan insisting that Christians should give up ministering and helping other people, just because God had predestined them to "go to hell"? I'm no biblical scholar, but I think that most Christians would be offended by that idea. So why have the conversation at all? Why not just say, "I don't know whether this is true or not, so I am going to make the best choice possible and do what feels right." Helping people in need feels right. Reducing the amount of pollution in the air, soil, and water of the earth in which we all must live, and cutting back our consumption of natural resources that are in limited supply just feels like the right thing to do.

Let's continue the debate, while making the right choice right now. There is too much hanging in the balance. Enough of the partisan rhetoric. Enough with the statistics and one-sided, incongruous scientific data. How about putting some good 'ol logic on the table, and considering that for a change?