Short-Term Gain, Long-Term Pain

Posted by Shirley Siluk Gregory Mar 24, 2007

George Monbiot proposes a disturbing yet revelatory idea in "Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning," hie new book on the solution to global warming. It's the idea that no government, no agency, no group has really taken any hard-hitting, meaningful steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions because, deep down, the people in charge know that we, the citizens, don't really want them to.

That's because the actions that would really make a difference require us to do more than simply switch to more energy-efficient lightbulbs and trade in our SUVs for compact cars. It would take us agreeing to -- no, demanding -- carbon rationing, better public transportation, a near-complete halt to long-distance air travel and other radically life-alteing (for those of us lucky enough to live in the developed world, anyway) changes in the way we live.

It's human nature, I suppose, just like we want to lose weight, but would rather find a magic pill or sacrifice-free diet that lets us eat everything we want, rather than have to acknowledge we eat too much junk and move far too little. Or the way we'd like to have more money saved, yet, rather than deny ourselves that special purchase or expensive vacation, we overburden our credit cards to the point we can't even keep our accounts in the black.

Sooner or later, though, all these pleasure-giving denials of reality -- these "inconvenient truths," as Al Gore so aptly put it -- bear fruit that can no longer be ignored. We're "suddenly" 20 pounds heavier than we used to be. We "unexpectedly" don't have enough to pay the cable bill this month. Or we're "surprised" one day to discover the ocean shoreline is a lot closer to our house than it used to be, the summer heat waves are a lot deadlier and the crop yields from our local farms are a lot lower.

That's why making the transition to a green lifestyle -- and committing to working for change at the local, regional and national levels -- is something we all should want to do now. Because our small sacrifices today could help prevent some very predictable yet unpleasant "surprises" a few years down the road.