Global Warming Merits Widespread Moral Outrage Essay -- Climate Change,

world(a) Warming Disaster Merits Widespread Moral Outrage Global warming will take its toll of human life to the nisus of hundreds of thousands every year. According to John Broome--the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Oxford--these unfortunate victims of societys next big challenge will die by three main causes heat waves, expansion of tropical diseases to temperate latitudes, and change magnitude flooding. And yet many of my fellow EEB (ecology and evolutionary biology) grad students felt that the lineal loss of life was a pittance in comparison with the indirect set up of global warming, such as the loss of ecosystem services caused by the demolition of the natural world and the social turmoil associated with the inundation of the many millions of homes by the rising oceans. There are three paradoxes to the politics of global change, which together can only lead to the conclusion that the US governments stance is horrendously un precisely. The bush stance to which Im referring is the recent decision to withdraw completely from negotiations for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. By this international treaty, the Clinton administration had agreed to limit US emissions of CO2--the largest anthropogenic ratifier to global warming--to 7% less than 1990 levels by 2007. Bushs decision directly contradicted an unambiguous campaign promise to limit national emissions of air pollutants including carbon dioxide. This monumental decision enraged EU leaders and humiliated EPA director (ex-NJ Governor) Christie Whitman, who had just stated publicly that Bush would implement the Kyoto Protocol. The first paradox is that Bushs confession of the decision is that the Protocol is unfair to US because it does non explic... ... spend thousands of dollars to close out their children contracting malaria as the plasmodium-carrying mosquitoes spread North? And what are we going to grade the many millions of Bangladeshis who will soon lose their lowland communitie s? I am going to tell them that I am profoundly sorry, and that I fought the secure fight. I will tell them that I refused to act as an vindicator for indefensible American policies. I will tell them that I refused to apportion in discussion of the finer points of emissions trading or carbon square off credits without first pointing out that the very basis for discussion is deeply unjust. This Earth Day, I am making a resolution not to legitimize Bushs despicable climate change position by pass judgment the paradoxical assumptions upon which it is based. I invite you to join me--for the sake of future generations and disfranchise people everywhere.