Opinion
Issues bigger than global warming
March 2, 2007
I hate myself for writing this. Well, hate’s a bit strong, but there are some definite feelings of dislike. I’m going to talk about how I am getting tired of hearing about global warming. My excuse is that no matter how much you dislike discussing something, there are such things as verbal car wrecks, topics you can’t stop discussing and just captivate you to the point where there is no help for it that it must be brought out to the open. It’s like therapy; this column is therapy for me.
As if endless discussion of global warming hasn’t been enough, Al Gore had to get involved. I am not an Al Gore fan. I don’t know him, of course, but I’ve seen enough Saturday Night Live (SNL) to have formed a less-than-stellar opinion of him. I base all of my opinions of celebrities, politicians and transgender exotic dancers on what I see on SNL, and it’s worked out well for me so far. I just hope I one day get to meet Janet Reno, because if there is a dance party, I’m going to necessitate an invite.
So Al Gore was somehow involved with a documentary called “”An Inconvenient Truth,” which I didn’t see, and he also made an appearance at the Academy Awards, which I also did not see. Yet, I still manage to hear all about it.
Honestly, I don’t really buy into the whole global warming thing in the first place. I’m sure it’s an issue and something we should be concerned about, but anybody who has gone outside in the past month would probably agree that we don’t have to build solar-shelters any time soon. Polar bears that drown due to the melting of ice is just an example of natural selection. If wildlife in Thailand knew the tsunamis were coming in 2004, a polar bear should know when the ice he is standing on is melting.
At the Academy Awards (which were green this year!), Al Gore said of global warming, “It is the overriding world challenge of our time.”
I would have to disagree wholeheartedly, and I’m certain that people in Iraq, Darfur, eastern Europe, actually, all over the world, would also. People are dying right now. Worldwide, someone dies of starvation every two and a half seconds. Darfur, located in Sudan, has lost possibly 300,000 people in the past few years due to violence. Nobody knows for sure what the body count is, maybe because nobody has cared enough to count.
Starvation, genocide, war and slavery are as rampant today as they have ever been, and the United States is not immune. Over 15,000 people, mostly women and children, are smuggled into America every year to become slaves, usually of a sexual nature.
If global warming is the biggest challenge the world is facing right now, I must have my priorities mixed up. I just believe that before we make a better world for our children’s children, perhaps we should show the children, women and men of today’s world that they mean the world to us by giving them a safe place to grow and live.
Cassie Rodgers is a student at UW-River Falls.