The Environmental Issue from Hell

Is global warming a moral dilemma? Is it the public policy problem from hell? McKibben is wise to use phrases like these. By discussing hell and morals, your mind is already equating it with two heavily debated issues and beginning to question their existence and how we should deal with them. As for existence he chooses to discuss how global warming “will creep up on us.” He goes on to discuss the slight changes that are taking place and how we “live lives so divorced from the natural world that we hardly notice these changes.” He’s right. Not only in choosing the word divorce which everyone has heard and in some way or another experienced, but also elaborating and explaining about parking garages and air conditioning. Then he goes on to discuss how to deal with global warming since it is indeed creeping up on us, and that he says is the moral question: do “we owe any debt to the future.” By wording it this way, McKibben asks if we owe them anything. No, we don’t just like we weren’t owed anything, however, he then goes on to discuss how “we would loathe the generation that” did not react. Loathe is such a strong word, but I think it gets his point across. People, Americans especially, are so quick to judge however they only look through their own perspective lenses. McKibben is asking for us to take a step back and look from someone else’s point of view which as an author is a brilliant idea. He is asking them to be open minded and look through someone else’s eyes with the hope that it will be his.