In a Washington Post piece by William Branigin we learn that Democrats Vow to Combat Global Warming. Just from the title, it sounds like a great story. But the happy face soon turns upside down. It seems that the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) are confusing two issues. The first is a global problem, the other is a US problem. Global warming, by it’s very definition, is a globabl problem. The world is warming; there is little debate about that. But we should not confuse global warming with climate change either. Climate change, like global warming, is a great phase because it means exactly what it says: the climate is changing. In fact, the climate is always changing, even without human influence. As continents move, it changes the differential heating of the surface, which causes weather patterns to change, thus changing the climate. But nobody is really concerned with that change, as it happens very slowly. No, we’re worried that most populated areas are seeing dramatically higher temperatures now than they were 100 years ago.

Most people (in the US at least) don’t care about things like biodiversity or really global warming, they care about themselves, family, and friends. So when you link global warming, which has consequences of its own, with an issue like energy independence, you get more political support because all a politician has to do to get anything done in America is to invoke fear. By saying energy independence, that immediately leads one to think of Iran and all their oil. Other countries have oil too, it just seems like we as a nation are over-concentrated on Iran because of their nuclear ambitions. What would be nice is if people would talk about global warming, or talk about energy independence, but not talk about them at the same time because then the issues get confused.

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