Broadside Opinion

By William Curtis, Opinion Editor

It boggles my mind how much information I have read on global warming, and having read about it from so many writers in past issues of Broadside, as well as this one, it has left me with one question: Is global warming the only item we have to discuss?

While going through my e-mails just the other day, I stumbled upon a Letter to the Editor that piqued my interest. The letter was written by Jason Von-Kundra and can be found in this issue on page seven. When I read this piece, it made me realize that we really have been debating the existence of global warming for far too long.

There are more important questions we should be asking ourselves. Is health care reform really going to happen, and if it does, will it benefit us all or make us hate the systems we put in place even more? Should Ken Cuccinelli continue to deny anti-discrimination laws for homosexuals in Virginia?

And if you are ignorant and foolish enough to believe that global warming isn’t real, then you too are denying the facts and the evidence that is right in front of all of our faces.

I have been studying global warming ever since my high school biology teacher explained it to me almost eight years ago. Then just last year, I took Mark Sample’s Disaster Fiction class, and you would be surprised what fiction involving the end of the world can teach you. I can honestly say that I learned a good deal about survival tactics from that class, which clearly ups my chances for survival in the future — if, God forbid, anything truly devastating does happen.

This class also made me realize, or rather only extenuated my belief, that we are nearing the end of times. I have my beliefs about 2012 and whether or not it will be some cataclysmic catastrophe, but the fact still remains that the earth is rapidly changing and adapting more quickly than we have ever seen.

One doesn’t need scientific evidence to know this. The proof can simply be seen by opening your eyes. As I sit here writing this piece, it is 72 degrees outside, and just under a month ago, Virginia, as well as the entire East Coast, accumulated record-breaking snowfall. Earthquakes, tsunamis, mudslides, tornadoes — these disasters are happening because of what we have done to our planet. And if you would like to stay in your little belief bubble and ignore what most people are realizing now, you are going to be in a world of pain . . . if you survive.

So instead, let’s stop quarreling over the existence of whatever is eventually going to kill us, because arguing over this topic is almost like watching children fight over an invisible dog: slightly entertaining, but ultimately pointless.

I imagine that, although this is a great topic to discuss and one that is very intellectually stimulating, when it gets to the point where 11 professors need to voice their concerns on a scientific issue, denying that a student’s beliefs are accurate, I think it might be time to open your mind and look at the situation from a different angle.
Seeing or hearing someone else’s perspective can change everything, or at least allow the ideas of someone who may have a different and better perspective into your head.

William Curtis is an English major.