Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Evil & Climate Change

"Evil" is not a word I normally use, especially in reference to people. Instead words such as ignorant, misinformed, deluded, and ill, more easily trip off the tongue.

Yet now I'm increasingly drawn to the word evil when I read articles such as "Attack on the Clean Air Act." We've come a long way from Profiles in Courage.

None of these politicians would strangle their own children. Yet by their actions they are threatening to strangle their children and grandchildren and ours as well.

This debate has brought to mind the Robert Lewis Stevenson's story The Bottle Imp. Like the sailor at the end of the story, have these people decided that they're already condemned to hell and have nothing to lose, or are they merely self-deluding?

This wonderful video of Dan Gilbert may explain what's going on with the climate deniers and help us step back from condemnation and return to the search for collaboration. We and they must not "remain sleeping on our burning bed."

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