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How will Climate Change affect my freedoms?
Assuming you accept the predictions by climate scientists about a warming planet, how are the freedoms we enjoy in Western culture likely to be affected? I worry that as people suffer under ever more frequent and catastrophic weather events, that nations will band together under one government to force carbon output reductions and adaptations. Could we find ourselves enslaved to a world despot?
If you are a climate skeptic, suspend your disbelief for a moment please. Assume global warming is real. How will nations react when it is obvious that we are doomed. Will a new Hitler arise, justified by the need for urgent action against the new worldwide enemy called global warming?
10 Answers
- Anonymous10 years agoFavorite Answer
Some denialists claim that global warming is a conspiracy to limit our freedoms, and therefore, we need to let Faux News do our thinking. The truth is, if anyone values his/her freedoms, we need to keep up with the science.
Our freedoms will be safest if we do our bit to stop global warming. Don't drive a larger car than you need, don't drive more than you have to, use compact fluorescent light bulbs will slow down global warming.
If people are displaced due to rising sea levels or if there are food shortages due to droughts, you can expect a lot of rioting and other violence. Governments will probably respond by instituting martial law. But contrary to the denialist argument listed above, that will not happen just because of the science of global warming which is currently known.
- Jeff MLv 710 years ago
It won't. There won't be much forcing going on as consumers purchase more environmentally friendly products. As fossil fuel burning power plants run out expect them to be replaced with more renewable energy sources. There will be no 'one world government' as the governments can't even work together for a common goal. The one world government thinking is driven my people like Monckton, Limbaugh and Beck who feeds off peoples fears. It's completely ridiculous. Instead of looking at things like science, the absorption capabilities of CO2, changes in the Earth's energy imbalance, and so on they rely on conspiracy-style thinking in which all the world's governments, climatologists, and everyone else that states anthropogenic global warming is a reality are trying to take away your freedoms through taxation. Instead of looking at the data they make wild conspiracy theories backed by non-existent arguments. And yet they have the gull to call us unscientific, morons and idiots. I question peoples sanity often if they believe that there is a drive to form a one world government to take away people freedoms through climate change mitigation.
- DoubleTLv 410 years ago
What you all are describing is a “worst-case scenario”, but it doesn’t have to be like that! There are other options, that is if you want there to be other options. It is actually up to you, up to all of us to determine how we want our future to look like. I read the following sentence that is worth pondering: “There has to be a revolution…but it has to be a revolution of consciousness.”
According to the UN, 2.8 billion people won’t have enough water to meet their basic needs by 2025. Surely you agree with me when I say that this is all a consequense of mans irrisponsible actins and behaviour. And I don’t talk about ‘them’, I talk about “us”, the hole of humanity as one. At the moment our actions are driven by our egoistic desires, the desire to gain financially, at any cost, and therefore they do have a direct impact on climate changes and numerous other factors. So by changing this collectiv egoistic desire, by means of education and study (change in consciousness) we can reach different results. If you can make a person buy coca cola in the darkest hole of Africa, you can surely make him buy any other idea as well.This is the power of advertisment, the question is what intention do you/we have behind the advertisment, is it self benefit or the good of all. So what we have to change is our attitude and try to get organitzed and spread this idea as wide as we can. This is our hope and IT IS POSSIBLE!! (And don’t worry about your “freedom”, it will be quite irrelevant when people won’t have enough water)
- d/dx+d/dy+d/dzLv 610 years ago
In general, the world is headed toward a period of intense competition for resources which is likely to cause a breakdown of civic order as we witnessed in the middle east. Oil, fresh water, and fertilizer are all becoming scarce and that means less food, less transportation, and more angry mobs. Climate change makes the food shortage worse, but we would encounter the same political problems with or without climate change. In these conditions anarchy is a more likely outcome than autocracy. Your life may be shorter in anarchy, but you will have more freedoms.
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- VinceLv 710 years ago
It's already too late to stop global warming. And any changes in lifestyle we were to make would have little to effect in slowing global warming. Just keep doing what you're doing and don't worry about what life on Earth will be like in 50 years.
- 10 years ago
The latest predictions are rather gloomy and 'freedoms' may be the least of your worries. I would suggest teaching your children how to hunt game and construct appropriate shelter. There could be a complete breakdown of society. The biggest worry will be how the deniers cope with this, we can expect a whole group of people to become psychotic as they realize they were wrong. Make sure you learn how to use a gun
- JimZLv 710 years ago
Will some countries ban together and attack oil production, power plants, vehicles, transportation, agriculture, etc because they are emitting CO2? It may be possible for future the Hitlers, Stalins, and Maos attempting to use reasons like this to motivate hatred and envy but most likely it will be directed at their own people. The great leftist revolutions of the last century murdered over a hundred million people, the vast majority from their own population.
- Anonymous10 years ago
not at all. you can still do whatever you want because you are a human being, and nobody can tell you otherwise
- Anonymous10 years ago
I THINK WE SHOULD KILL ALL THE POLAR BEARS AND **** THEM ALL IN THE *** LIKE HITLER IN 82 MANNNN