The will to preserve society

What, me worry? (Rainfall figures, USDA) When news first broke a couple of weeks ago that nearly all of Greenland's entire ice sheet had melted into slush, many who follow the daily grind of the polls and gaffes of the two men vying to occupy the White House for the next four years were given a brief moment of pause. Arguments about tax returns, marginal rates, and who built what business with exactly how much outside help begin to seem trivial when compared to questions about what will happen to New York City if all the ice in the Arctic dissolves into the deep blue sea.

These concepts are not new: Given the possibility for catastrophe associated with climate change, it's hard to understand why it hasn't been more of a focus. Now, given the glaring frequency with which extreme weather events are dotting the landscape and the admission of anthropogenic warming even by those who are paid to deny it, perhaps the situation will finally get the attention it warrants.

But even if it does, there will be those who stand in the way of anything resembling the type of action it would take to address the problem. Typically, the people who oppose climate change are thought to do so because of short-term financial considerations: There are obviously those in the fossil fuel industry and other businesses who profit directly from the very activities that are warming the climate. But as powerful as these industries are at dictating policy in the United States and throughout the world, both logic and emotion seem dictate that they would eventually be overwhelmed by a unification of opposing forces, even on the right wing, who value the preservation of society over shorter-term profit. Unfortunately, that assumes that the right wing is interested in preserving society as we know it, and this assumption could be gravely mistaken.

Both progressives and conservatives feel that they are ideologically superior to the other, but the rationale behind that superiority differs dramatically. The sense of progressive superiority arises from the belief that our political positions will give the greatest number of people the greatest chance at happiness and success, all while preserving our planet in the process. This is the spirit that underlies progressive political positions: tax justice, strong unions and investment in infrastructure will give our middle class a better chance to succeed, even if it costs the wealthy a little more. Environmental regulations will keep people healthier and preserve our world's legacy, even if it costs factory owners more to implement them. Women and the LGBT community deserve full equality by nature of being just as human as straight men. Many of us support further regulation of assault weapons because it gives people a better chance of staying alive. We tend to oppose wars of choice for the same reason.

In short, we recognize that while we have made many improvements, society is not just, and we seek, to paraphrase Dr. King, to bend the arc of the universe a bit further in that direction. For progressives, global warming is obviously a major bummer: The economy will be drastically affected, and there will be untold suffering for those who are displaced by rising sea levels without the wherewithal to relocate. We take it seriously, but still, not as seriously as we perhaps should.

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