Today I continue to serialize SIMPLE SOLUTION Essays. This article was published in the Huffington Post on 11August10. Updates will be inserted as appropriate.
I decided to link a topic from Book
1, global warming, with one from Book
2, religion. Part of this composition is to further
understand my mystification of why Americans are so prone to believe without
proof. I find it difficult to
comprehend why 90% of our citizens have faith in a heaven with no confirmed
evidence, while less than 50% don’t think much of global warming, when most of
the responsible scientists say that this is real. I repeated this message in a subsequent HuffPo.
Chapter
4 in SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth reports on global warming, and points out the
greater peril of THE VENUS SYNDROME, with methane, not carbon dioxide, as the threat.
Chapter 5 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity is a different take on religion, and wonders why
90% of Americans believe in the afterlife, while this figure is below 25% in
most of Europe, Israel and Japan. The following synthesizes those two chapters,
and anyone desiring details can go to those books, for 731 full references are
provided.
Decision-makers
are influenced by their constituency. If the public does not care that much
about a problem, these leaders tend to ignore the significance of the issue.
Conversely, if an overwhelming percentage of, say, voters, believe in
something, then potential candidates take heed.
For
example, most polls taken over the past few decades seem to indicate that
around 90% of Americans believe in some afterlife and a God. It would thus
behoove political candidates to be religious. The odds are, of course, that
most of them actually believe themselves. At the national level, only Congressman
Pete Stark is on record as not believing in God. However, he does not plan to
run for office again. There are, reportedly, 27 others. But they are not ready to come out. The fact of the matter is that something on the order of
90% or more of Americans would consider a black person or woman, but less than half would vote for an atheist.
As an
interesting sidebar, only 5% of biological scientists in the National Academy of Sciences believe in the afterlife. Is there something this elite group knows
that we don't? (In comparison, 82% of Americans believe in something after death.)
Well,
no. There are certain things that might not ever be known, while there are some
other things that should be scientifically provable. Let's take global warming
as an example. Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists believe that the global average temperatures have increased over the past 50 years, and 84% say
that the cause is human-induced. Only 13% believe that there is relatively
little danger to Planet Earth and us. Only 1% of them believe that the TV/cable
media are very reliable and 3% rate local newspapers as very reliable. You can
make your own conclusions on what these numbers mean.
We all
know that polls can be skewed by how you ask the question and who you solicit.
So take the following any way you wish, but most recent surveys show that the
American public is split about the environment being given priority over the
economy and vice versa. In 2000, 67% favored the environment. Today, this percentage has slipped to 36%:
Last
year 56% thought that cars and industry at large are mostly to blame, but the
fault dropped to 54% this year. Slightly more feel that government should fine
or tax company emissions, but only 52% to 45%. We tend to be concerned about
water and air pollution, but only 37% worry about global warming.
Yet,
Al Gore and others like him might be having an effect, as in 1997 only 25% said
that global warming would pose a threat to their way of life (with 69% saying
no), and this year the apprehension shifted to 40% yes and 58% no. All in all,
though, climate change is not a huge concern to our populace.
I
might add that a World Public Opinion poll reported this year that 43% of
Americans felt that carbon dioxide was a pressing problem, while the returns
from the world showed: Australia at 69%, Argentina 63%, Israel 54%, China 42%,
Russia 32% and India 19%. Interestingly enough, 71% of those in the United
Kingdom believed that this was all a natural occurrence and not a result of
this gas. The recent UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report by more than 2,500 scientists found a 90% chance that people were the main cause and drastic action was needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
How then is global warming related to the afterlife? No, nothing to do with
afterlife being hell, although that might make for an entertaining movie.
Simply, for both, logic seems almost irrelevant. We tend to believe what we
want, heavily influenced by our upbringing. Science is not welcomed in
religion, for can you imagine the fate of a political candidate who might
foolishly state: the greatest immorality of religion is that there is no proof
of an afterlife. It's particularly worrisome that science is failing to have
much effect on public opinion. There is no simple solution, but I'm trying,
with Chapter 3 on education and Chapter 5 on religion in SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
for Humanity.
Comments (11): I again quote from my summarizing
response to one of the inputs—
I would agree with much, if
not all, of what you said. The fact that 90% of Americans believe in a God and
the Afterlife, probably helps to keep most people honest and caring, with the
availability of an almost necessary psychological crutch for many. There is
much value there. However, my purpose of linking Global Warming and the
Afterlife was to stimulate conversation on how religion might, then, best take
an active role in ameliorating climate change. I took on this self-proclaimed
mission to Save Planet Earth and Humanity from Peak Oil and Global Warming by
first writing those two SIMPLE SOLUTIONS books pictured on the right, then,
reaching out into the ether through The Huffington Post. Common sense was not
working, so I posted a two-part VENUS SYNDROME (Chapter 5 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
for Planet Earth) nightmare, hoping that fear would work. That did not make a
ripple. So I tried an out of box political solution by suggesting in a five
part Huffington Post series to make renewable energy FREE. That never gained
any traction. Thus, I thought I'd play the spiritual card. All you who are
faithful, pass thls post on to your congregation! If this fails, still to come
is the joker (sort of the antipode to religion) in the deck: THREE STRIKES AND
YOU'RE DEAD. Details on this concept can be found in Chapter 1 of SIMPLE
SOLUTIONS for Humanity.
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