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Sorry
but this hullabaloo over climate change and global warming
is getting my goat.
I
admit that I'm no science guy, and much less a techie. But
precisely because of this, the dummies, short for the rest
of humanity and me, expect our scientists and intellectuals
to get their act together and stop confusing us. Doom-watching
is not a favorite pastime for many.
What
is it really? Are we supposed to be alarmed by an impending
calamity? Why this all-of-a-sudden, hysterical blame on man
as cause of this coming catastrophe? It's like our emitting
carbon is now a sin!
Or
are you, the brighties, supposed to study more, gathering
more data, sifting through them, analyzing, comparing, discussing
among your clever selves to come out with more educated and
realistic consensus?
It's
not good that the scientific debate be selective and tilted
to favor the alarmists. We have had enough doomsday seers
through the years, and hardly any of them turned out to be
prophetic.
I still remember the population explosion scare. The only
thing that exploded was their
wild
extrapolations. In fact, in many places, especially in the
developed countries, what we have is depopulation.
To
date, the global warming doomsayers have made a number of
false and inconsistent claims.
Some
forecasters said that the year 2007 would be the hottest so
far. It turned out not to be so. The lowering and rising of
ice levels in the Arctic and Antarctica are at best inconclusive.
We should not fuss about them.
I
read somewhere that before Al Gore got his Nobel Peace Prize,
the English high court ruled that his documentary, An Inconvenient
Truth, could not be shown in schools without teachers providing
additional materials to correct nine "significant errors."
Among
the errors: that Pacific atolls are being evacuated because
of rising sea levels and that polar bears are drowning because
they have to swim up to 60 miles to find ice. The court found
no evidence to support these claims.
So
far, most findings are largely speculative, derived from computer-simulated
models that hardly match with facts.
It
would also be interesting to look into the business aspects
of this issue. Those peddling doom are generating lots of
moolah due to the scare, and are now into heavy venture capital
investing.
There's
reason to suspect that many scientists are colluding with
big business. Also, that this scare is to prime and herd us
to some kind of global government.
Making
things worse are the inflationary factors infused into the
issue by some sectors of the media and a few Church figures.
They give their two-cents worth without having a good grasp
of the matter.
It
seems that some people get riveted to this issue because they
would have another battle cry against their favorite culprits-the
rich, the powerful, the government, the Establishment, Western
world, etc.
In
our case, for example, since we are still skirmishing about
the population issue, rendering the global warming issue in
terrorizing tones would favor those who are for population
control.
It
would relieve the tired ploys of population controllers of
such guises as reproductive health, freedom of choice, women's
rights, etc. It would certainly expose the evil of bearing
carbon-producing babies.
Also,
I would not be surprised if some people end up blaming the
President for global warming! That would not be first time.
The issue, given a spin, can be another opportunistic swipe
at the President.
For
my part, I think we all need to remind ourselves to pray.
We'll do everything to get to the bottom of this question,
using whatever human means we have, but we should never forget
to pray.
If
there's any grain of truth to the gloomy prognosis, then by
all means let's do everything to prepare. But with prayer,
we transcend earthly and temporal conditions.
We
go beyond human fears. With prayer, hope, not disaster, is
the ground zero.
But
let's really see whether there's rational and scientific basis
for the tempest this issue has spawned. Let's avoid "scientific"
stretches used to fuel a world terror.
**********
Fr.
Roy Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise
(CITE) in Talamban, Cebu City. You can email him at:Email: roycimagala@boholchronicle.com | 
