I’ve had enough of this global warming debate, if it can be called that. A debate implies that both sides are worthy opponents; both equipped with the reasons, based on evidence, why their viewpoint is correct.

If one wants to believe that up is down or black is white, that’s fine. We live in America and everyone is allowed to think whatever they want, based on whoever’s evidence they deem reputable.

Almost everyday, I hear people quip, “What difference does a nice, hot winter make to me? I’ll be dead in a few years anyway!”

First off, on behalf of the Earth, thank God.

Secondly, the point isn’t the weather. It’s human impact.

Warmer/colder, potato/potahto, its all the same human-driven theme: factory farming, shrinking landfills, air and water quality, extinction.

There are 6 billion of us, all wanting an HDTV; ready to throw out the old analog one when the FCC provides the perfect excuse to do so.

Isn’t it funny how we all understand the phrase, “Don’t [expletive] where you eat” but cannot connect the dots toward E. coli in spinach?

We are self-caged animals, capable of changing our own newspaper, yet too pacified to bother.

When I hear “Why fret, I’ll be dead soon,” I wonder if this person can be so short-sighted that they have trouble seeing their own grandchildren playing in polluted lakes. It’s not as if we are talking about the scale of time shared by the explosion of the sun, or the level of chance or control shared by a stray meteor.

We are talking about decades, and we can control it, not only because we are the most capable organisms in the solar system, but because we are all responsible for cleaning up our own messes.

Once again, it seems as if everything I need to know about life, I learned in kindergarten. I just wish that some members of my society would have been held back a year.

The debate of obviously misguided beliefs is a poor investment of time, and in the case of climate change, it is also disastrous to the point that lies within.

I believe that shortsightedness to the point of blindness, a stubborn unwillingness to accept responsibility for one’s actions, and a malicious escape from the truth are the qualities that, if not altered, will certainly be the end of human kind — regardless of who wins the debate on global warming.

Katie Lehto

senior, biochemistry