The Dump: A Climate Change, Global Warming Analogy

There is a piece of land in your neighborhood that contains several tons of trash and debris. A house once stood there, but now it’s at the bottom of the heap. Locals sneak over there at night to toss their refuse and passersby casually pitch trash out the windows of their vehicles in the direction of the pile. Over a lengthy period, the neighborhood “dump” has become a breeding ground for vermin and loose trash blows around the neighborhood on windy days. Property values have plummeted and nearby homeowners are upset. Naturally, this piece of property has become the epicenter of controversy.

People who live nearby are clamoring to have the mess cleaned up. They don’t want themselves and their children exposed to the insects, rodents and chemical waste any longer and they don’t want it getting worse, which they know it will over time. Instead of budgeting the money and hauling the trash away to the legitimate dump for proper disposal, town meetings have consisted of fighting over the cause of the mess.

Most people had heard the story about the homeowner who got mad at his ex-wife and blew up the house with plastic explosives. They accept it because they knew the guy and what he was capable of doing. They know he had the means and the motive and the opportunity. One old codger from several blocks away started a different explanation for the problem by saying that a tornado blew the house down. Others took up the refrain and continually assert that the house was blown down by a tornado. They have become so obsessed with the tornado theory that they are willing to block any progress that even mentions the explosives theory. They don’t even want to talk about cleaning anything up because they maintain that since people didn’t created the problem, people can’t solve it. And the property sits there becoming more overwhelmed with rusty old appliances, bald tires, paper trash and garbage every day.

There you have the conundrum of global warming or climate crisis in a smelly nutshell. Even if you concede to the skeptics that the whole problem isn’t being created by humanity, they will simply use that to avoid doing anything to clean it up. They are the petulant children who try to weasel out of their chores by saying that they didn’t dirty the floor or the furniture so why should they have to vacuum and dust. Unfortunately for society, there don’t seem to be enough adults in charge anymore to put an end to such unproductive histrionics.

We can either start now and do something productive or let it get to the point of science fiction dystopia misery. Do we really want future generations to talk about us with curses through clenched teeth between gasping for air and jostling for dwindling personal space? Reasonable people don’t want their children and grandchildren to detest them for squandering resources that decent people should leave to their progeny. Part of that inheritance should be a world as clean as we can make it with current technology.

There will have to be sacrifices. Why does the thought of sacrifice bother us? Are we lesser people than previous generations? Maybe we are. Maybe we’re not as good as the Americans a generation ago who fought World War II both abroad and at home with rationing and recycling and a herculean effort by the civilian population. We’re too soft and fat and in love with luxury and trivia, such as celebrity gossip and reality TV. If that statement doesn’t make you angry knowing that it doesn’t apply to you, stop reading.

We will have to give up conspicuous consumption. If you drive to work in town and sit in an office all day, you don’t need a behemoth truck with a hemi or a humongous SUV. Get a small car for the commute. Find one with the best energy efficiency rating and squeeze into it. You’ll save a lot of money as well as fuel. You’ll be able to park more easily. You won’t have to give up the feeling of freedom you get by driving your own vehicle.

Buy a smaller house closer to your place of employment. Seriously, aren’t you tired of cleaning that McMansion or paying someone else to do it? Aren’t you tired of spending hours of your day on the road between where you live and where you work? Moving twenty miles closer to your job can save you an up to an hour’s commute each day. Counting two weeks vacation every year that’s 250 hours of commute or just over ten days of your life back.

Overpopulation is a bigger problem than people think. In one generation, population can double where previously it took tens or hundreds of generations to double. Consider having a smaller family. If you have kids, stop at whatever number you currently have. If you haven’t reproduced yet, have only one child or have no children. Adopt rather than create more humanity. The more children that are born, the fewer resources are available for all. Your personal resources are also important. It cost over $160,000 to raise a child through college (at a state school and not a prestigious ivy league institution). If having one more child is the difference between going away on vacation yearly and providing college educations for your existing child(ren) and not, why deprive yourselves and your existing child(ren)?

We can either scale down our use of resources or there won’t be any resources left for subsequent generations. If we haven’t reached the tipping point where ecosystemic change is calamitous, not doing anything at all is irresponsible. If we have, then the best we can do is slow down the inevitable and hope for future solutions. It’s our call and our responsibility.