The September 9th-15th, 2006 issue of the Economist Magazine has Global Climate Change as its front page story.
The Economist Magazine, along with the Wall Street Journal, have long been staunch defenders of the POV that the various impending ecological, climatic and economic problems in the world are overblown. After all, many business readers, who are their bread and butter, don’t want to hear this kind of news.
It’s interesting to see, as the problems loom larger and larger, how those who previously denied the problems come to grips with the necessity of revising their public positions on the issues. Some, like the current administration, are still deep into denial and bluffing it out. Others, like the Economist, just take up a new line and never mention their previous doubts. And others, like Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society, come out directly and admit their change of heart and openly discuss the factors that turned them around.
This slow permeation of awareness, whether it be for ecological awareness, democracy or human rights, is what advances humanity in its evolution towards more enlightened ways of doing things. It’s just a shame that we hardly have time for everyone to ‘wake up’. The problems are approching much faster than our awareness of them is growing and therein lies our core problem.