I bet if you walk around campus today and asked students if “global warming” is the most important issue they are paying attention to this November, most would say no, and rightfully so. We are living in an economy where one in two college graduates can’t find a job in their field of study or a job at all.
However, not that long ago, debate raged throughout the country about record-high temperatures, extended droughts, relentless winter storms and stronger-than-normal hurricanes disrupting the lives of millions of Americans.
Media figures and politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, ran around talking about the impacts of global warming and how something needed to be done about it. The most prominent political figure sounding the horn was former-Vice President Al Gore and his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. I was shown that movie twice in high school and once here in college — as part of an English 151 class, no less.
It was rare that you turn on a television and saw a scientist or a professor talking about the facts in context or without political motivation. Most of the time, it was a politician and some piece of legislation he or she was going to bring to the floor of the House or Senate.
Personally, I welcome debate on that topic and want to be presented with every fact and viewpoint possible. I believe, like most, that, as individuals, we have some impact on the environment, but the question is, to what degree and how much is it Earth’s natural cycle that takes place over hundreds of thousands of years?
That’s why the OU College Republicans have invited Professor Robert Wagner from Ohio State University to come and speak to students Thursday night from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Morton 235 as part of our Conservative Week.
Professor Wagner himself is a skeptic of global warming and has gone around the country explaining and debating his own theories about certain occurrences in nature and their relation to the activities of the human population.
I ask — no matter if you believe in global warming as fact or theory — that you come to Dr. Wagner’s presentation. In recent years, global warming has been used as a catalyst for legislation, regulation and political positioning. Just like the Earth itself, the topic of global warming and its validity isn’t going away anytime soon.
Dylan Gustafson is a sophomore studying finance and the communication chair for the OU College Republicans.
