Global Warming and Bio-terrorism

While attempting to figure out what to reflect on this week (because honestly, this weekend has been so full of homework and projects, I can barely think straight, especially with the fact that break is in two days), I wound up looking back to class on Tuesday and looking at very vague references I wrote down to things that I apparently wanted to say. To do so, it involved shifting through a bunch of notes Row and VFS had decided to write in my OneNote about the plausibility of building a moon colony instead of protecting the environment now (or, what amounts to how awesome they think space travel is and how NASA should get lots more money to make pointless trips to space. But I digress).

There are actually a few random points I wanted to make. While looking back at the pro-con list we had gone through about how we should face global warming… or global climate change, I think the contrast between long term and short term perspectives are fascinating. I tend to look short term – what is best for my interests right now, which explains why I support focusing on current economic problems in contrast with long term issues that may or may not affect me in the future. It’s not that I don’t see the value in trying to at least mitigate environmental changes (I do think we have a right and responsibility to change what we perceive as the threats of nature if possible. We can’t just sit back and let it happen), but I don’t think it should be the key focus. If we devote a little bit of time, energy, and funds to long term projects, “it will get done,” as Scott says frequently. However, we need to focus most of our energy on solving short term issues so they don’t become problems in the long term. Fix the economy, get money back in people’s pockets, allow them to invest and spend (especially in private R&D for something like alternative energy sources or space travel), and the long term issues will have a much better chance of being solved.

The other note that I had made was about why I would support stopping bioterrorism over a focus on global warming. Again, it was the idea of short term security over long term. I also believe it is much easier to predict what humans will do then what nature will – we have a better chance (especially with the intelligence community that the United States has) of predicting a terrorist attack to happen and prevent it than we do knowing when some natural disaster will occur. Or, it’s more plausible that we can find out one rather than the other. It’s also about priorities – we can’t solve everything. I think that’s clear. We need to eliminate the most pressing and immediate threat first and foremost with our most strength. However, that isn’t saying that we can’t also simultaneously work to solve other problems. It’s about realizing that we can’t bite off more than we can chew, and I think it’s pretty clear that the United States has a tendency to overreach (trying to help half the world solve their problems, attempting to spread democracy into Iraq, etc.). We need to prioritize to more effectively solve problems.