Free Will versus Climate Change

If I told you that tomorrow promises to be a hot, hot day with temperatures soaring above 41 degrees Celsius, & that you ought not to step out for work because someone might knife you owing to the heat, you would probably consider me loony. Or if I told you that tomorrow promises to be a cold, cold day, with temperatures going below 5 degrees Celsius, & that you ought not to step out because someone might knife you owing to the extreme cold & their frustration with the weather, you would again consider me ‘off my rocker.’

If I told you that owing to a major drought expected this summer in line with global warming everywhere, farmers are going to be hard hit, & the nation would erupt in a civil war, you would properly consider me paranoid. At the very least & if you use your head to think, you would consider such an assertion fantastical & far-fetched. Why? Because there may be global warming in the coming months which may lead to droughts which may lead to farmers being hard-hit which may lead to people being dissatisfied with enduring hardships which may lead to a civil war & social unrest. If you were to apply such a line of reasoning in your daily existence, you would find yourself crippled with inaction & literally starve to death, motionless, held captive by the contradictions in your head.

Yet, the President of the United States, an Ivy-league educated, constitutional-law professor makes exactly this assertion. States Mr. Obama –

“There’s already some really interesting work — not definitive but powerful — showing that the droughts that happened in Syria contributed to the unrest and the Syrian civil war. Well, if you start magnifying that across a lot of states, a lot of nation states that already contain a lot of poor people who are just right at the margins of survival, this becomes a national security issue. And, that’s why even as we have members of Congress who scoff at climate change at the same time as they are saluting and wearing flag pins and extolling their patriotism they’re not paying attention to our Joints Chief of Staff and the Pentagon who are saying this is one of the most significant national security threats that we face over the next fifty years.”

Imagine if I told you that since you were on the brink of survival, barely able to make ends meet, you have become a threat to national security. Why? Because there are enough of you on the brink of survival who might engage in looting, arson, rioting, & civil war. Therefore, my proposed solution to diffuse this sensitive situation is as follows –

I will collect the most politically pliable climate scientists and the most prominent celebrities in the world, spend untold billions of tax-payer dollars on research on climate change, propose solutions to curb carbon-emissions, tax & regulate any manufacturing or industry out of existence, all with the objective of cooling down the earth so that droughts don’t happen, so that that those of you on the brink of survival have a better chance at earning a livelihood, so that when you are not starving, there is less likelihood of your engaging in rioting, murder, pillage, & arson. According to my reasoning, if I can prevent the earth from overheating, I will have prevented droughts, & I will have ensured peace & security for all.

With President Obama’s method of reasoning, anything can be ascribed to anything. Anything can be proven with the simple assertion that since A is the cause of B & since B is the cause of C & since C is the cause of D, a simple matter of going to the root cause A & modifying A suitably will produce the necessary desired effects on D. In Mr. Obama’s simple assertion of equating a heating planet with a civil war in Syria & unrest around the world, what is being ignored? It is that which makes humans specifically human. It is free will. Man is a being of volitional consciousness. Man can act to change & correct the course of his life. Man is the master of his own destiny. Man can act in his own interest, overcoming his challenges & emerging victorious. Contrary to Mr. Obama’s assertions, a drought need not necessarily mean a civil war, even for those who are barely able to make ends meet. Men possess the faculty of reason, they possess intelligence, & no matter what a person’s personal circumstances might be, he can choose to overcome his adversities with thought, logic, & appropriate action. Besides, it is not an act of nature including droughts that is responsible for poverty, unrest, & civil wars. It is lack of political freedom. If one is attempting to identify causal connections, then one ought to possess the ability, integrity, & intelligence to make the right ones. The right ones are those which confirm to reality & are demonstrated to be true. It is not an overheating planet, it is not a changing climate, it is not carbon emissions that is responsible for the mayhem, carnage, chaos, & bloodshed in the Middle East & Islamic world. It is the political expression of Islam which is responsible. As a religion, Islam is in the Middle Ages. The Islamic world is dominated by religious theocracies that enforce primitive, barbaric, ritualistic customs in the garb of Sharia laws, etc. If women in the Islamic Republic of Iran are forced to wear the Hijab, it is because the theocracy of Iran interprets Islamic customs & morality in a manner so as to compel women to do so. They do not wear the Hijab to protect themselves from an overheating planet or global warming. If ISIS or Al Qaeda or Hezbollah or Hamas engage in acts of terrorism against Israel & elsewhere, it is not because they comprise of terrorists who became terrorists owing to droughts caused by global warming. It is because these terrorist outfits seek to establish Islamic states & enforce Islam politically according to their interpretation of this religion. If Russia & IRI are bombing Syria in the name of containing terrorists while openly attacking humanitarian convoys & hospitals, it is not because they are worried that global warming & climate change is creating terrorists en-masse, it is because both Russia & IRI are themselves totalitarian states that have little to no regard for individual lives, individual rights, for life, for liberty, for the individual’s right to pursue his own happiness.