Editor’s note: This commentary is by Don Peterson, who is an unpaid lobbyist for the natural world and a longtime resident of Lowell.
[R]ecently, U.S. Congressman Mo Brooks of Alabama posited in a hearing on climate change that rocks and dirt running into the ocean from rivers, as well as erosion of the shoreline by waves could be responsible for the global rise in sea levels. Anyone who ever sat in a bathtub can appreciate how that might be the case, unless they’ve seen the size of the ocean, like from a cruise ship for example. Even the Gulf of Mexico outside of Mobile Bay must be pretty large, and I’m sure Brooks has seen that.
I read this in one of those snarky online news/commentary (commentary/news?) websites. The point of the article seemed to be to prove that climate deniers are all fools, which is pretty low hanging fruit for any journalist, especially given the rich political soup we currently find ourselves enjoying.
But Mo Brooks is probably not a fool: After all, he was able to get people to send him to Washington, D.C., to represent them. And I imagine he got somebody else to pay for his campaign to get elected. No, he’s not a fool — he just happens to want to squander his God-given talents on a very esoteric speciality, that of electoral politics. I personally can’t imagine using what time I was allotted on this planet in such a pedestrian manner. But it takes all kinds.
I was reminded the other day of a conversation I had with someone shortly after town meeting one year. He pointed out to me that he was glad “there was finally someone from East Hill on the school board,” as though East Hill was a town of 10,000 souls and not a settlement of six houses and a barn or two. It was in its way the ultimate expression of a parochial interest. A reminder that there’s always an “Us over here” and always a “Them over there,” and depending on your outlook, the scope is variable down to the ridiculous.
I think about climate change all the time, and have for a long while. Reading about Mo Brooks, and thinking about his resistance to the obvious led me to conclude that he could be, within some narrow definition of the term, a sincere man of good will and not an idiot or a monster.
It might just be that something as big as the climate can’t be absorbed by some people. They aren’t denying climate change, they just can’t imagine it, the way my friend couldn’t imagine that someone from the Flats might be able to represent his interests on the school board.
We all have our parochial interests to defend. In Mo Brooks’ case, it might be Alabama’s coal industry that restricts his vision. But the climate is so huge it smothers the local, the parochial and the petty, and that is where we all spend most of our days. Maybe that is why some people don’t seem to get it.
We’re like those deer in the headlights. The car is upon us but we don’t really know what a car actually is, beyond two blinding spots of light. Perhaps Mo Brooks isn’t denying climate change. Maybe because it’s not something he can barter or negotiate or sell to someone, it’s outside his ken. Maybe he’s unable to grasp the size of a climate. Maybe none of us can. That idea troubles my days.
