Hot debate - Jeff Jacoby on "
Chicken Little and global warming": "
Climate-change hyperbole makes for dramatic headlines, but the real story is both more complex and more interesting. Chicken Little may claim the sky is falling. A journalist's job is to check it out."
6 comments:
Chicken Little trumps President Reads Little.
However, I'll gladly say the exact opposite for a nice fat Exxon check.
Big Energy is trying to buy scientists off even though the best data supports them, just because they're generous and impatient, right?
When the solution to "global warming" is something other than restraining the American way of life, I'll start to consider it. Until then, spare me.
Professor Timothy Ball:
"I once received a three page letter that my lawyer defined as libellous, from an academic colleague, saying I had no right to say what I was saying, especially in public lectures. Sadly, my experience is that universities are the most dogmatic and oppressive places in our society. This becomes progressively worse as they receive more and more funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint.
In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?"
What Jacoby does not mention is that during the 20th century, there was more global warming during the first half than during the second - even though CO2 emissions were greater during the second half.
The trouble I have with the "believers" is that they tend to attribute opposite effects to the cause of global warming. For example, the colder than usual winters of 1994 and 1996 were said to result from global warming, as was the milder than usual winter a year ago. It would seem that if one of these is evidence for global warming, the opposite would be evidence to the contrary.
After six years of stories about the Bush administration systematically quashing data and rewriting reports, it's just humorous to see people thinking it's conservatives who have their free expression stomped down by those in authority.
Even the Prof. Ball letter cites "funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint." Hmm, a nasty 3-page letter from another professor, or White House policy enforced by U.S. Departments... by God, someone's GOT to do something about those campuses!
The big question no one seems to be asking is "So what?"
The earth goes through warming and cooling trends, some more dramatic than others. Species die, other species evolve, new species appear.
More than likely the human race will have managed to die off somewhere in the next 100k years and something else will replace us as the dominant lifeform. Again, so what?
Blair
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