| Mission Statement |
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PITHIER
PITCH Global Warming is the issue of the era. Our climate is changing, our seas may rise, our deserts are expanding, and it is hubris to think that on a planet where creatures of all sizes are dying off in record numbers, humans can continue on unaffected. At the same time, Global Warming is an issue that humanity can address—right now, in today’s economy, with our current knowledge, through existing technology, and backed by the energy of a moral commitment being made by more people each day, people who believe that if we are the best and brightest of the world’s creatures, then we have a duty to act in the world’s best interest. Frog King intends to declare the truth about Global Warming far and wide, demand that our political leaders make wise and progressive decisions that dismantle this glass ceiling, and encourage the world’s largest popular movement to stage a peaceful Green Revolution! MISSION STATEMENT He may be a King, but there is only so much our Frog-in-Chief can do to stop the planetary thermometer’s rise. A frog can keep an eye on his pond, but only humanity is equipped to see the immediate peril of Global Warming, and only in the planet’s women and men can the world find reason to hope for a solution. Let’s not kid ourselves any longer. We have talked about being Environmental Stewards before now, but we’ve never even approached a level of responsible action that would merit the title. We’ve taken from the planet, and we’ve taken some more, and that has been the story so far. Columbus crossed the ocean blue for gold and silver, we headed West as young men and women for land and yet more gold, we conquered the seas to consume all its whales and fish, and now we fight across the globe to protect, corner and control the market for oil. As far as stewardship goes – the proper use of the land and seas – we’ve spent millennia practicing how to use it but have a good deal to learn about how to act proper. All of that is about to change. We’re waking up, seeing the mistakes of our past, and looking to make them right. Global Warming is a human problem and our responsibility. Frog King wants the entire world to accept the truth of that fact and to proudly take up the challenge of saving the planet from ourselves. OUR PLANET AND OUR COMMITMENT Greenhouse gases have accumulated in the atmosphere at a remarkable rate over the past two centuries, and human beings have produced them. This is fact. Opponents of Global Warming measures argue there is no definitive way of telling what effect those increased levels of atmospheric carbon will or could have on the planet. We concede the point. The world is complex beyond the calculations of our greatest computers, let alone our personal imaginations. We cannot know what will happen next. And with that point made, we have won the argument. We do not know what changes the continuing Industrial Revolution will bring, only that we have spent 200 years in a global experiment of pouring carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at a rate only paralleled by an age when the planet was more volcano than verdant. Science experiments thrilled us as children and fascinate us even now, but turning our only planetary home into a lab for a single, possibly lethal experiment along the line of ‘just how much can the old girl take?’ is about as wise as putting out a match in a gasoline can—you can do it, but even if it works you look like a fool. Frankly, we like the weather the way it has been for the past thousand years. Those of us in the temperate zones have become accustomed to the changing seasons, and the languorous constancy of life near the equator suits nearly everyone else (leaving aside residents of the north polar region who won’t have the option to travel any further north as the temperature rises). And let’s be honest, we never have been altogether good with change of any kind. Yet the changes we face are likely to be drastic. Experts debate whether life in Vermont, for instance, in the year 2070 will be more like it was in Louisiana one hundred years before or if in fact a veritable Ice Age will have covered the entire Northeast Region of the U.S. The lack of consensus gives Global Warming naysayers an opportunity to scoff; but neither option is appealing, and empty rhetoric at a moment when we can consider either of those two profound and swift changes as plausible is simply irresponsible. We love our Earth, and we want it to stay as beautiful and generous as it has ever been. What we don’t love is the glaciers creeping backwards, poison ivy growing faster and more virulently, ski seasons shortened to a month, droughts year after year, forest fires burning across the world, and hurricanes building to unimaginable strength and in unnecessary numbers. But what we really dislike are the other possibilities, no matter how unlikely, reputable scientists warn us we now have to consider (massive flooding, vast desertification), now that we’ve made our thin atmosphere a garbage bin of enormous proportion. Can’t we agree to do everything we can to make certain that life as we know it continues predictably along? Let’s band together to beat back the winds of Global Warming! After all, it’s hard enough to know whether or not to bring an umbrella when we head out to work, let alone guessing between an ice axe and mosquito repellant! |