A growing number of policy makers are starting to consider Global Warming and Climate Change nothing less than a national security threat, according to an article in the New York Times today.

I think it’s the biggest threat there could possibly be, dwarfing all other planetary concerns. I also think talking about it as national security is the way to go. Why can’t we rev up the same sense of patriotism to stopping using plastic bags that Bush used to work out his daddy issues in the Middle East? Why can’t we tell someone that buying fruit from 4000 miles away is a threat to the planet? Why does fear always have to be a tool of deception? Can’t it be a tool for reality too? Can’t instilling proper fear in people about actual threats aid our enlightenment as a society? I’m afraid of what will happen when parts of Earth become unlivable. As the article says, it gets real complicated real quickly when that happens. So let’s be properly afraid, and about the right things for once (as opposed to say, whether Obama was born here or whether you look okay). And not the kind of fear that makes you freeze up. The kind of fear that makes you start a garden. That kind of fear is great.