Not long ago,
I interviewed William "Bill" Tweed who recently retired as chief of
interpretation at Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park. Like most
Sierra naturalists, Bill is very concerned about climate change and believes
major changes are inevitable for the Sierra Nevada and its diverse array of
ecosystems. But as we
wrapped up the interview, he took a different approach to the subject and spoke
not about the threat of climate change but our response as a society to it. I
found his observations intriguing and have included them here. "Scientifically,
we understand climate change," Bill told me. "But we haven't got the body
politic to understand it. The challenge of global climate change is not to
understand what we are doing to the planet. It's to try to change how we
respond to what we have learned. "We live in this
bizarre society, this strange society, where we happily accept science that
gives us toys and pleasures and we consistently reject science that challenges
us to think about limiting and controlling ourselves. But it's the same
science. We just pick and choose. The same people who happily sneer at global
climate change are fascinated by what comes from the Hubble space telescope."
Conversations and observations about California's mountains
August 30, 2008
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