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How many of us buckle our seat belts before we drive our cars? I'm willing to bet that pretty much all of us do. Using seat belts has become part of our culture; its efficacy is no longer questioned. So you would think, anyway.
Google the phrase "seat belt legislation history" and the first site listed is a Wikipedia article that slyly questions the idea that seat belts save lives. Instead, the author asserts that "Claims of the number of lives saved, based on the extrapolation of trends pre-law, could not therefore be reliably associated solely with seat belt compulsion because so many other factors were also involved."
Other sites warn of the deleterious effects that seat belts laws have had on those outside cars such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. One site insists that such laws are unconstitutional. Another site links seat belts to the surge in aggressive driving that all of us have experienced at one time or another.
So here we are over 40 years after the passage of what most folks think was an eminently common-sense piece of legislation only to find that doubters and deniers still persist. In spite of those few remaining doubters, we routinely buckle up for safety because we can judge for ourselves the need for them every time we put our kids in the car or read about someone surviving a horrible crash.
It is easy to see the wisdom in using seat belts. It is much harder to see the wisdom in worrying about global warming. There is nothing tangible to see or feel or do to persuade our common senses that the danger is real. What is tangible is a very vocal chorus of dissent that is fueled by a very potent mixture of self-interest on the part of affected industries, science's natural tendency to question everything, and a growing populist sentiment that distrusts government and other quasi-official institutions. They have become very good at making mountains of doubt out of molehills of inconsistencies.
In the end, each of us must make our own decision about buckling down to fighting global warming, just as we have about buckling up for safety. We wouldn't think about taking the kids out for a ride in the car without first buckling their seat belts, because seat belts are part of our checklist for safe driving. Thinking about global warming should be part of our checklist for living a better life and leaving a better planet for our kids to inherit.
This essay first appeared in www.PlanetRestart.org
