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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (322748)	1/24/2007 3:23:06 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1583507

The "war on terror"? That, or at least certain aspects of it, could be argued as an example of the idea. OTOH the resources spent, despite being very high, are significantly lower then those required to revamp how we generate and use energy across the economy. And importantly we have been hit by large terrorist attacks, so where not talking only about highly disputed possibility of some problem many years down the line. Support for the idea that we should do nothing to fight terrorist threats is not just small, but insignificant. Even support for the idea that we should take no military action against the threat but rely only on police work and intelligence operations, is a decided (if perhaps growing) minority. Certainly reasonable arguments can be made against aspects of the war on terror, but recognizing that fact doesn't mean you have to junk the whole thing. The big differences between how the war on terror and trying to combat global warming, in the context the statements you quoted - 1 - The war on terror is an attempt to deal with real, and current threats, not possible future threats (its an attempt to deal with those as well but real current threats exist) 2 - The war on terror's cost is smaller. 3 - The idea that terrorists are a threat is pretty much entirely non-controversial. The idea that global warming is a serious threat is gaining ground, but it is controversial and uncertain. Support for a serious level of effort against terrorism is near total (even if specific measures, including some of the biggest are disputed and fought over), its not the same with global warming. Or to some it up in one sentence - The risk from terrorists is nearer in time, more certain, and and more universally recognized, while the cost of fighting them is smaller.