Monday, February 5, 2007

Environmental Activism: Global Warming Deniers

Ignorance is Bliss!

According to this article, an alarming number of Americans are ignorant:

Thirteen percent of Americans have never heard of global warming even though their country is the world's top source of greenhouse gases, a 46-country survey showed on Monday.

While this ignorance may, indeed, feel quite blissful, I thought it worth pondering what some great thinkers of the past have said on the subject of ignorance:

    Thomas Jefferson - "No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity."

    William Hazlitt - "The ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its malice."

    Samuel Johnson - ,"He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces."

    TS Eliot - "All our ignorance brings us closer to death."

It seems T.S. Eliot was right, for, according to the UN report out this week, imminent mass death seems to be what our ignorance has brought upon us. Yep, shockingly enough, humans seemed to have caused it. Who would have thought?

Despite this knowledge of imminent mass extinction, Exxon is offering $10,000 to scientists willing to deny this climate holocaust.

2 comments:

stacy said...

Do you mean this quote from T.S. Eliot: "All our ignorance brings us closer to death."

I think this is appropriate in discussing American attitudes to global warming for a poll done only last week found that a full 13% of Americans had never even heard of global warming.

Dana Herbert said...

Yes. Correction made. Thanks!