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11:29:00 PM EDT
Exposing the Global Warming Skeptics
Recently, Joel Achenbach had a great article in the Washington Post Magazine ("The Tempest") about climate change skeptics. Some are scientists, some are think tank spinmeisters, but all think global warming is not something to worry about.
Achenbach does a great job of profiing the skeptics and their arguments, then letting us know what the scientific consensus is on global warming -- that the planet is warming, it's happening now and if we don't do anything we could end up with a "wildly destabilized climate."
The skeptics, Achenbach writes, seem to live "on a parallel Earth." The think global warming is a hoax, a "big can of worms," and that govenment should not try to fix it (if it really is a problem). The free market should fix it (just like it's fixing our energy and health care problems -- not).
Now I don't believe all of the worst global warming doomsday scenarios, like those depicted in the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow' a few years ago. Skepticism is a good thing. I think most journalists are naturally skeptical. But the scientific evidence for global warming seems solid (the ice cores show the warming; temperature records show it; measurements of the polar ice caps show it; computer models show it). There is scientific consensus. Since the warming is linked to pollution caused by we humans, it seems prudent to take action to reduce our impact. Let's preserve as much of the natural systems on Earth (which sustain us, by the way) as we can. Let's practice the precautionary principle -- do the least harm possible.
So when I read this article I was prepared to consider alternative arguments, to walk in the skeptics' shoes for a bit. Half way through they lost me, like when Fred Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute said that people should own endangered species -- privatize them so they won't go extinct. Huh?
Smith also opined that wilderness is unnatural. "Wilderness is the least natural part of this planet," he said. Since humans are a part of nature, whatever we do is natural, he said. (Circular reasoning anyone?)
Smith's colleague, Myron Ebell, describes environmentalists and people concerned about global warming as "the forces of darkness." Whoa, man overboard! (When people don't have good arguments, they resort to name calling.)
The Bush administration was quoted too,saying yes, they think climate change is happening, but it won't be cured with regulations. They also complained that the public discourse has gotten off track and explained that's why they won't go on TV or discuss it in the press. Wouldn't want to clear things up, would we?
We may not have all the answers on global warming, but we've got enough pieces to see what the puzzle is shaping up to look like. The questions I have for the skeptics in denial are: Can we afford to gamble and be wrong? Will you just tell the millions of people who could be affected -- including your grandkids -- sorry we blew it and we didn't do anything? What's wrong with the idea of reducing pollution? Don't corporations, which are members of society too, have an obligation to first do no harm? Can't human ingenuity come up with ways to produce energy that don't pollute so much?
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Oh boy, its doomsday again. Perhaps we should listen to the same scientist who say it wont rain tomorrow and it does! Those scientist can't get tomorrows climate right so why should I count on them to know what is going to happen in 50 years. Maybe we should just close down all manufacturing and become a third world country. Now that would be smart.
And by the way I thought you left wingers didn't "profile". Just another way to get my money.
Of course when we go bankrupt we will lose the one thing most people dont have, FREEDOM! And dont worry my leftist friend, industrialized nations like the United States dont go left during political revolutions, they go RIGHT! So dont worry about global warming, worry about losing your freedom and even worse.
By the way, did Joel Achenbach happen to mention that the Southern Polar Ice Cap is growing larger???? Opps, left (and I mean way left) that one out. Oh by the way did Joel Achenbach happen to mention that we are at the end of the most recent ice age (which lasted for about 800 hundred years)? Opps, left that one out too.
First it was welfare to end poverty and after 5 trillion or $5,000,000,000,000 dollars later, guess what we have the same percentage of poor as when we started. Then, it was the women's lib movement or wealth redistribution movement. Now we have the worst marriage rates in the world, the lowest birth rates and a male identity crisis.
Now its the ban smoking movement and the global warming kick. Listen get down to the chase, how much money and power does the left want? Heck the check is in the mail (NOT). -
How about the fact that the Earth has gone through warming and cooling periods 100's of times before Humans walked the Earth?
Now that is a FACT!
Why is it that the treaty the USA refused to sign mandated PAYMENTS in cash from rich countries to poor countries? What on Earth does the transfer of wealth have to do with global warming?
Nothing of course. That global welfare treaty would have cost the Americans BILLIONS of dollars, again what does transfering billions of dollars to poor nations have to do with global warming?
How come that part of the treaty was/is rarely spoken about? I wonder.
Offer an agreement that will not require the beginning of a global welfare system and something might get done. -
Your logic all breaks down on the basis of one simple - but totally erroneous -- statement. "I think most journalists are naturally skeptical."
That was true several decades ago, but, sadly, not any more. Any story that is going to frighten or enrage the readers (listeners/viewers) is swallowed hook, line and sinker. Fear and outrage raise readership/ratings. That's all that matters. Especially if the story advances the agenda of the left. Remember in the months preceeding Roe v. Wade? The left issued the "statistic" that something like ten thousand women died in the US each year due to "back alley" abortions. Since then, we've learned that the actual number was about 250. But the media never once asked for a source for the higher number. They repeated it over and over until everyone just came to believe that it was true.
Please, please go look at a graph of global temperatures over the last thousand years. A few decades is like a nanosecond in terms of earth history. The temperature increase we're experiencing now has happened dozens of times over the last thousand years. It is preposterous to think we can draw any solid conclusions based on what we have witnessed in our miniscule lifetimes. -
The comments in this article have motivated me to work harder on what I am preparing for prodproductions.com. I hope that you get a chance to read what appears on that website.
You have done an excellent job of explaining the weakness of the argument against the reality of global warming.
1/21/07 9:01 PM
And by the way I thought you left wingers didn't "profile". Just another way to get my money.
Of course when we go bankrupt we will lose the one thing most people dont have, FREEDOM! And dont worry my leftist friend, industrialized nations like the United States dont go left during political revolutions, they go RIGHT! So dont worry about global warming, worry about losing your freedom and even worse.
By the way, did Joel Achenbach happen to mention that the Southern Polar Ice Cap is growing larger???? Opps, left (and I mean way left) that one out. Oh by the way did Joel Achenbach happen to mention that we are at the end of the most recent ice age (which lasted for about 800 hundred years)? Opps, left that one out too.
First it was welfare to end poverty and after 5 trillion or $5,000,000,000,000 dollars later, guess what we have the same percentage of poor as when we started. Then, it was the women's lib movement or wealth redistribution movement. Now we have the worst marriage rates in the world, the lowest birth rates and a male identity crisis.
Now its the ban smoking movement and the global warming kick. Listen get down to the chase, how much money and power does the left want? Heck the check is in the mail (NOT).