Last week I got a letter in the mail from my grandad. Apparently Obama's election has reminded him that he has yet to convert me to the republican mindset. A year or so ago, I made the mistake of recommending that he watch the movie An Inconvenient Truth because I thought (mistakenly it turned out) that the science would transcend the politics. That was when I learned that not only does my grandad not believe in global warming, but that it is apparently considered more of a political issue than a scientific one. Anyways, for about three months after I recommended the movie to my grandad, I got an unending flow of newspaper editorial clippings from him about how the liberals have all invented global warming in an attempt to bring down the conservatives and ruin the world. Eventually, he stopped after telling me that if I just read Ann Coulter's columns and books, I would see the light. Then, last week a letter from my grandad arrives with a clipping that says that Obama is exaggerating the (according to the Conservatives and Republicans) non-existent global warming crisis in order to destroy the American way of life and make us all into socialists. First off, I'm willing to admit that there's a chance that global warming is exaggerated, but I took geography and geology in college and I'm not willing to accept that my professors who had studied and researched it were lying about the science behind it. I've always found that inbetween two extremes tends to be the most balanced and accurate place to stand. Second, I'm tempted to ask my grandad why he would think that his unemployed grand-daughter, who is currently barely able to afford prescriptions and totally unable to afford insurance and who not only voted for Obama but was actively counting down the days until Bush left office, would possibly side against socialist policies that have a chance of improving the environment, the economy and her chance of getting affordable healthcare?
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