Doha Climate Change Conference: The Great Climate Change Myth At This Event

The UN climate change conference is currently underway in Doha, Qatar. You might be (pleasantly) surprised to know that someone is still talking about it. If only we took the next step.

Interest in tackling climate change seems like it’s at an all time low. Part of the apathy, at least here in America I’d argue, could be due to the large numbers of people that believe that climate change is something that falls under God’s job description, not ours.

Former Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) once famously said, "God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."

Throughout the economic recession, topics like climate change rolled under the bus and we've reach a point of stagnation on it.

The level of inaction makes conferences like Doha exasperating. Christiana Figueres, the head of the UN’s climate change secretariat, said she didn't see "much public interest, support, for governments to take on more ambitious and more courageous decisions,” vis-a-vis climate change.

Even if our government doesn’t have the time to develop new policies focused on addressing the harmful levels of pollution accumulating in our atmosphere, we should all recognize something the religious right fails to – that climate change is still our problem to deal with.

What's outrageous about comments like Inhofe's is the lack of emphasis on personal responsibility or recognition that God gave us hands for a reason. (Inhofe is certainly not alone, just a good, albeit old example.)

It’s time, long past time, to step up to the plate on climate change, with a cap-and-trade system (set to go in effect after the world economy becomes more stable) and a Manhattan Project-like initiative on green energy.

It’ll likely need to happen sooner or later. Even if that seems alarmist, at least it's not untrue.