Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has completely correctly identified carbon as the malefactor, whose presence in the atmosphere and in the oceans threatens the existence of life on earth. For some reason, Whitehouse is often a lone voice in the Senate, ignored by his colleagues as if he were crying wolf. Tell Senator Shaheen to pay attention.
I do not like the term “global warming” because some people do not know what a globe is and “warm” is a good sensation. There is simply nothing alarming about a warm globe.
This is not to say that I am in favor of alarming people willy nilly, but the practice of pumping carbon from the earth’s crust into the air we breathe is something to be alarmed about.
That Whitehouse is talking about carbon is good, because carbon is the problem, all by itself. That carbon molecules attach themselves to oxygen molecules is also a problem because oxygen is what humans need to live and carbon is what we get rid of with every breath.
Why aren’t more Seantors standing with Whitehouse? Because a goodly number of our public servants are cowards, who were selected based on their gift of gab, which lets them dissemble and pretend to be brave when they’re not.
We assume that people who talk a lot know what they are talking about. It’s a false assumption. Many just sound like they know what they are talking about because they are good at repeating what other people say. Even smart people are inclined to conclude they’ve been understood when someone repeats their own words back to them, like a parrot. And human parrots are handy to have around — or were before the advent of electronic recording and repeating devices.
Not all the parrots are cowards, but those that are are a disaster. Because they are easily frightened and when they are frightened, they freeze and become resistant to change.
I’m not sure the resistance reflex has been previously identified, but it strikes me as a valid diagnosis.
