Let's be clear. The people equating statistically improbable disasters - asteroids, aliens all that- to the absolute certain fact that global warming will, if left unchecked for too long, deconstruct civilization are engaging in a type of self soothing via fuzzy thinking. This is what denial is.
The people denying that the threat is imminent and reasoning that it is therefore amenable to current political processes are doing something a little more subtle.
They are creating an imaginary causal linkage between three phenomena which are, in reality, causally unlinked. This is therefore a type of magical thinking.
The first phenomena is the pace at which global warming will proceed. No one knows with certainty how quickly it will proceed or what effects each step of the progression will have on factors effecting national security. What we do know is it's worse than we thought, proceeding faster than we projected.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/02/23/203730/mit-doubles-global-warming-projections/ [thinkprogress.org]
That pace is in no way related to the second phenomena , the ability of a (gerrymandered) minority of politicians to block urgently needed action at the federal level. Funded by and beholden to the now-classifiable-as-genocidal gas and oil industries, scientifically ignorant and proud of it, the pace of warming is in no way effected by their continued inaction, and nothing about their inaction obliges global warming to back off for our collective sake.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/03/17/203822/media-copenhagen-global-warming-impacts-worst-case-ipcc/?mobile=nc [thinkprogress.org]
The third phenomena is what level of ecological disaster is going to serve as the trigger point at which the denier population capitulates to reality and assents to urgent, sweeping federal action. Because that level of ecological disaster both exists and will be realized sooner or later.
But that point is in no way causally related to that other point in time, the point of no return, where given our then-current or achievable level of technology, we'll still be able to limit the effects of global warming in order to preserve the habitability of the planet.
There's nothing to say that deniers won't come around too late. There's no guarantee that the level of ecological disaster sufficient to finally get through to deniers will appear on a schedule sufficient for us to solve the problem.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=349 [skepticalscience.com]
To think vague things like- eventually everyone will come around and then the political process will kick in in time for us to save ourselves- is magical thinking. The forces controlling the pace of, and political resistance to, global warming are unrelated with respect to the time frame needed to act.
The original question is rhetorical but only in the way opposite to that asserted by the deniers here. It IS a fact that the threat posed by global warming falls under the purview of the executive branch who WILL be empowered and in fact have a duty to act unilaterally, without Congressional oversight or approval, in order to preserve the national security of the United States. The only question is when will that time come and how will we know it? Is it now? A little while from now? When it's too late to do any good?
We just squeaked by an election in which one of the parties' candidates was threatening to pipeline in tar sands from Canada and light them on fire. We already know that, if we light on fire all the oil we current have already drilled and sitting waiting to be sold, it's game over for the environment and ourselves. Drilling for more, spending money to obtain yet more and dirtier oil and then lighting it on fire is an act of psychological denial and literally, genocidal insanity.
The oil and gas industry, aside from being the most profitable and also the one of the most heavily subsidized -by you taxpayer- is also privileged to sell their product free from the forces of the free market where the cost of it negative effects would be figured into its price. That has to stop.
We're all on this ocean cruiser together. The rich are partying on the upper deck when the engineers call up and say that there's an iceberg straight ahead. The rich shout them down with slogans like -"what do engineers know?" and "they're just jealous (they want our stuff!!) ", much to the consternation of the second class passengers, engineers and crew.
There's dissension and growing panic. The iceberg appears to the untrained eye. The rich don't see anything and insist that the partying continue unabated. The passengers meet in small groups and start talking quietly amongst themselves.
If you were writing this movie script, you know how it would end- with the rich floating face up, blue-faced and lifeless in the icy ocean while the cruise ship veers desperately trying to pass the danger.
It doesn't have to come to that but in order for it not to, we have to act - yesterday. The mental devices people are using to hide the gravity of situation from themselves need to be directly attacked and unpacked for what they are- self comforting delusions and expressions of a suicidal, reality denying fanaticism.
If direct action under the aegis of national security is not to your liking then perhaps you're interested in preventing that certain eventuality from materializing. Perhaps that image, torn indeed from deniers own rhetoric and their own unconscious awareness of the falsity of their claims and death wish for civilization as it is to just end so they can start it over in some grand new way, perhaps the image of a crew and captain determined not to let everyone on board perish is motivating to you.
Whatever you decide , remember this- reality is just one way, not many ways. Enveloping yourself in a Post-modernistic bubble that says "there are as many realities are there are opinions" and "everyone's reality has some truth to it" is not going to save you when that one, angry reality comes crashing through your bunker.
Climate change denial is terrorism. It is a madman's bomb, built by madmen, being set off in slow motion by madmen, capable of destroying the earth and all civilization . All civilization is predicated on survival and if push comes to shove, then survival and not democracy, not due process, not the Constitution, not civil rights, first and foremost mere survival will prevail.
The people fighting to preserve all those things being threatened are the scientists and the reality-based community, not the "skeptics" not the lying "freedom and liberty" cartel- the Koch brothers, the American Enterprise Institute, the CATO foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Rupert Murdoch and the serial, pathetic self deceivers at Fox News. Rush Limbaugh. Etc.
The people fighting to preserve civil society and freedom and liberty are the scientists. The military. The CIA. The intelligence community. The aggregate secular civil society organizations . The reality-based community.
Get real. Your "arguments" are all predicated on wishful thinking and denial of the rankest sort. At heart, you think all reality is a form of spin, something that is ultimately negotiable and subject to the laws of compromise, if you just stick to your guns for long enough. Get real.
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