On the matter of global warming, President Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry recently asserted that the theory (global warming) is about to collide with reality. In other words, we need to act. There’s a bullish story to be found inside Kerry’s alarmism.
To find it, it’s worthwhile to travel back in time to the 20th century. With all the remarkable progress that took place, it’s perhaps easy to forget just what a disastrous century preceded the one we’re in now.
For a useful recap of all the horrors that revealed themselves in the century’s first half alone, we can quote Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle in his excellent new book, The Book of Charlie. As Von Drehle describes it, the 20th was marked by “unprecedented violence and dislocation – the Great War giving way to the Russian Revolution and the Armenian genocide, followed by the Great Depression, the communist purges, the starving of Ukraine, and the Rape of Nanjing, bleeding in World War II, the Holocaust, and violent struggles for colonial independence.”
To recap all the terrible things that happened right up to 1950, it makes it fairly easy to conclude that the pessimists of today are thoroughly spoiled. We all know who they are, the people who confidently stated that Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump were going to “destroy” the United States if elected, the people who say they don’t remember when it was worse as Joe Biden figuratively limps through the White House, and the people who claim for various reasons that the dollar is on the path to post-WWI Germany style collapse thanks to the present seemingly being worse than at any other time.
These people loudly advertize their lack of knowledge about history. Can they seriously believe the present holds the minutest of candles to the relentless horrors that defined the 20th century? The simple truth is that the problems of today wouldn’t rank anywhere close to the top, middle or bottom of a theoretical ranking of the perils that kept revealing their ugly selves in the 20th.
Which is why we should perhaps be bullish. Think about it. Ridiculous as John Kerry is, that’s arguably the bullish point. Add Biden and Trump to the mix. Good times and the prosperity that the latter entails allow for a little, or in the case of Kerry, a lot of sloppy thinking. And arguably sloppy voting too. Considering the various challenges that formerly presented themselves, does anyone think a Trump or Biden equivalent would have emerged with the world actually on fire?
As for Kerry, and in consideration of how bad things once were, does anyone think Kerry could have addressed a theory like “global warming” in straight-faced fashion back when the world was at war, people were being slaughtered by the millions, and collectivism was spreading? The reaction to such an unserious person would have brought new meaning to supercilious. With good reason. At a time when cold weather annually threatened people with death and starvation, some self-absorbed politician presented a warmer earth as something to fear?
Yet in the relatively tranquil 2020s, what a perfect issue. With the world not at war, with nationalities and races not being slaughtered, and with collectivism (the real kind) not on the march, Global Warming! The previous bit of nothingness is the Left’s crisis du jour, while equally alarmist members of the Right wrap themselves up in “culture wars” and parents choosing to not have enough babies. Both sides need to relax. And recognize how empty their concerns are.
What those alive in the 20th century would have given for today’s “problems.” Which is the point. And it’s a bullish one.
