Unintelligent Design

My elderly lab is walking on the small frozen marsh near my driveway. My heart stuck in my throat as I watched her. It has been a heart-stoppingly beautiful day of Maine Winter light here. The water is a clear Prussian blue and the sky is light cerulean. Now, at twilight, the branches and grasses are lavender browns and red ochres.

I could hardly begrudge the sweet warm air, despite global warming. But I am grateful that it is cold enuf that she will not fall thru the ice. I am even more grateful when she is inside and I have coaxed some dinner into her.

In the New York Times today, Nicholas D. Kristof has written an editorial, on global warming on page 14 of the Week in Review. He concludes with a quote from Jerry Mahlman, climate expert at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Dr. Mahlman wonders if our actions on global warming indicate we are an intelligent species or not and seems to conclude we are not.

As I type this, President Bush has announced a scheduled trip to visit New Orleans. What does he expect to find there that has changed in several months? Does he believe the image of his presence will offset the evidence of the collosal failure of this administration to address either global warming or the consequences of that failure for coastal cities? Just how unintelligent does he think we all are?

Kristof speculates about the future of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Kristof presumes the decisions Bush is determined to make will be a moot point. The refuge and all that wildlife will shortly be under water along with all coastal cities internationally. He does a very good job of explaining cumulative negative and positive feedback in climactic dynamics. Even someone not very intelligent can understand what Kristof writes.

So, it is not about intelligence.

Many authors and politicians have presumed that alternately, for this administration, it is rather about greed for oil profits or determination that the apocalypse should be hastened. Both seem likely to me. But what if there’s another explanation? What if this administration simply is incapable of caring?

That is, they simply do not care about dying Polar Bears or coastal cities. Perhaps it is just terminal self-centeredness.

Many people voted for this President because they could imagine him as a drinking buddy. So perhaps that is exactly what they have now: a drinking buddy who is too drunk to care about the repercussions, implications and consequences of choices? And the rest of us are in an emotionally drunken stupor of terror, deluged by survival issues as the economy tanks for the middle class.

I am often beset by self-doubt. Can any individual make a difference at this late stage of global warming with any act? Doing this blog is an act of resistance to that self-doubt. I see, each day from my counter, that I have visitors. Someone stopped me today to tell me their grandchild in New Jersey recommended my site. And my friends write me long, eloquent personal posts in response to various posts here. I have threatened to excerpt their writing and post it as a comment. Is that unethical if they won’t post themselves? I want to be ethical as well as intelligent.

My cat is on my lap as I type and has put her paw on my left hand as tho she is telling me something. Probably encouraging me to curb my self-righteousness; to have faith that we might still forestall the future.

A few weeks ago, I read of an algae that could eat carbon emissions. Might we all someday install algae devices in our gardens, on the rooftops of our cars, on our window sills, incorporate them into out fashions? And if we did, how many decades might it take to slow down the synergy of global warming?