Impact goes up the richer you are and the more you don't care

Me, being a liberal conservative and a seemingly lone environmentalist in my family of 6, have found the past weeks conversations in class quite interesting. My sister a die hard republican seems to think that global warming is made up. No matter how hard I try to present the facts, scientific and statistical, I can't seem to sway her to think any other way. So, to her I dedicate this post. My favorite part about the lecture on Wednesday was the formula that Dr. Burkett gave us: Impact = Population X level of affluence X level of technology. The only way that I can thoroughly illustrate this is from my senior year in high school, 2007. It was right before the election year and I was taking Government in a 100% George W. Bush loving school. My brilliant teacher decided to bring in a parent of one of the students who is a huge donor to the Republican party as well as a Republican activist. He was to come and talk to us on the main differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic party. Mind you that this man is probably one of the richest and most successful buisness men in Hilton Head and the surrounding areas and also one of THE most coservative Christian parents at my high school. He got to talking about policy and budgets and so forth when he opened the floor to questions. I realized that he hadn't bothered to talk about the environment at all so I asked him about it. He looked me straight in the eye and said well, "I'm a Republican, I drive a big fat Expidition, I can afford to fill it up, and I don't see anyone dying so I will continue to do so because global warming doesn't matter to my political party. Now, does any one else have any questions about issues that matter?" I was absolutely appauled. Looking back on it now I realize that your Impact actually = level of affluence which most of the time = level of caring. In his opinion he didn't need to give anything up because he would never be affected. I generally feel that that is the overall consensus of our nation.