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You're on a date with someone really cute. You are dining by candlelight. A violinist plays a slow, romantic melody. The wine trickles like a mountain brook. It seems as if the stars are aligning. Suddenly, you begin to talk of how you arrived at the restaurant. "I walked," you say. "I wanted to reduce my carbon emissions."
"Emissions," says your date. "For what? Global warming?"
"Yeah," you say, confused.
"That's all fake. A bunch of tree huggerspaid some scientists money to say climate change is real. It's all fake. Do you think the world is going to turn out like that movie, Waterworld? That movie was bad. It's all fake."
Before you go as frigid as the South Pole used to be, there might be a chance you can talk your date down from his or her crazy soapbox. Here are some suggestions.
Use Facts
Grab the bull by the horns and charge right in with facts.
1. The average temperature of the earth has increased by 1.4 degrees.
2. Arctic ice is melting. It was at a 30 year low in 2007.
3. The Northwest Passage once believed to be nigh-impassable, has recently become a viable shipping lane.
4. Montana?s Glacier National Park had 150 glaciers in 1910. Now there are 27.
Of course, many people are disinclined to believe facts, especially when they have to admit they are wrong.
Appeal to Authority
If your date poo poos all your facts, it might be time to appeal to a different sensibility. Many serious people and organizations know that climate change is real. Here are some of those people and organizations.
1. The United States Government
2. President Barack Obama and his one-time presidential rival John McCain.
3. The United Nations
4. The National Research Council
5. The American Association for the Advancement for Science
6. The European Science Foundation
7. And so on and so forth.
Appeal to Logic
If facts and social pressure won?t work, you can try to appeal to logic. In philosophy, the school subject, there is an idea called Pascal's Wager. Basically, this Pascal guy—he?s the same guy who the Pascal computer languages are named after—says that people should believe in god because doing so is the best possible thing for everyone even if it turns out that there is no god. (This isn?t a religious discussion. I am making no claims about religion. I'm just setting up the argument for you.) We can use this argument to talk about global warming.
Here is the argument:
If there is global warming and you believe in global warming, then you can do things to reduce it and help the planet recover.
- Pros: The planet recovers. You save money and cut down on waste. You also save non-renewable resources for later generations.
- Cons: You have to do a little more work: Walking instead of driving. Taking extra time to turn off lights, unplug cords etc.
If there is global warming and you don't believe in global warming, then you don?t do things to help the planet and the planet gets worse.
- Pros: You can drive a hummer and a snowmobile and waste gas spinning cookies in the parking lot. You can crack the thermostat to full blast. You have more fun and are probably more comfortable.
- Cons: The planet is damaged. The human race goes extinct.
If there is no global warming and you do believe in global warming, then you do things to help the planet and nothing happens.
- Pros: You save some resources and some money.
- Cons: You do a little extra work and waste your time doing it.
If there is no global warming and you don't believe in global warming, then you don't do things to help the planet.
- Pros: You can burn all the gasoline and electricity you want and you don't have to worry. You are likely to be more comfortable and can let things like phantom power slide.
- Cons: You still waste non-renewable resources.
As you can see, the worst that can happen if you do believe in global warming is that you waste time hours walking and taking the train and unplugging cords. The best that can happen is that you save the planet.
If you don?t believe in global warming the best that can happen is that you will end up more comfortable with full-blast air conditioning and comfy airplane seats. You also won't be wasting time walking or unplugging.
The worst case scenario is that the human race dies.
So in order to get the best best-case scenario and avoid the worst worst-case scenario, it only makes logical sense to act as if there were global warming even if you don't believe in it. If your date doesn?t go for this, I?d get the check.
