Two/Ideology and the Right Brain

Because they have refused to sign on to the energy rationing required by Kyoto, Americans and Australians will be wealthier, healthier, and therefore better able to deal with future environmental challenges, whatever their cause.

- Myron Ebell, Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy, Competitive Enterprise Institute 9


Not only has our federal government thus far failed to take action to prevent the worst consequences of unchecked global warming pollution, but it has failed fundamentally to take reasonable precautions against global warming-induced storms and drought, and the high costs that will be borne by families, businesses and ultimately, taxpayers.

- David Tuft, campaign director, Natural Resources Defense Council Climate Center 10


It starts by asking a simple question: Who was the first person to propose taking an amazingly versatile but totally non-renewable resource that never decomposes—and using it as a commodity to throw into the garbage? And what kinds of drugs was that guy on?

By definition, this genius was using his right brain, because he sure as hell wasn’t using his left, where logic lives. No, this kind of five-star idea is definitely thinking way outside the box and is deeply, profoundly creative—a sure sign of right brain origin. Let’s say you discover a miraculous natural substance that has literally thousands of uses, especially in making life-saving healthcare equipment and medical devices, and after telling me that there is a finite limit to how much of this stuff you can find, you ask me what we should do with it.

“Why, let's set it on fire and bury it in the landfill!” I reply confidently, beaming broadly and looking exactly like the blithering idiot I would be if I said that.

But someone has said it.

Several someones, in fact.

Billions of us.

That’s right, us. We have said it. Over and over and over and over again—to the point where we could no longer hear the lunacy in the words. Even as the news builds in volume, confirming that we are assuredly reaching a point where demand outpaces supply—i.e. that there are more of us than there is of it—we keep setting fire to oil and throwing it into the garbage. Sounds like insanity, but remember, this program is brought to us by the same guys who, after receiving the monster of all wake-up calls during the 1970s Arab Oil Embargo, decided that the best way to prevent massive and debilitating oil emergencies in the future would be to form a new group of products called Hummer, Escalade, & Excursion. And then sit around and quibble over which of those petrol pigs was the biggest and longest.

But most women will admit that there’s a point where biggest and longest stop being assets and start being threats to comfort and safety. The party that's getting shafted tends to have a different perspective than the one wielding the shaft. One group adds four inches to its overall wheelbase, and another group bleeds.


====SOURCES====

9 Natural Resources Defense Council, “Press Release: US Not Prepared for Peril from Global Warming.” Apr. 19, 2007.

10 Competitive Enterprise Institute, “United States and Australia Dodge Kyoto Bullet.” Feb. 14, 2005.