Nadine; I view global warming as real. The trends are clear; very prominent scientists; those same people who developed the hydrogen bomb , created the telecomm revolution and cured many types of leukemia, or at least their close brothers and sisters, are saying global warming is real and very, very serious. Is that too hard for some people to accept? Why? Do these people know something the scientists do not know?
Powerline Blog sorted the issues well today, so I'll quote him: The issue is not whether the earth has recently warmed; it has, by around 7/10 of a degree in the last century. The questions are, 1) to what extent, if any, is that warming (or the cooling that also occurs periodically) caused by human activity, 2) how much warming (or cooling) is there likely to be in the future, 3) what will the net effects, good and bad, of such warming or cooling be, and 4) are the benefits, if any, of reducing CO2 emissions by a given amount worth the costs?
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/017274.php
His main point is to note how the MSM runs interference for the global warming hysterics, inasmuch as anybody who doubts any of the points gets described as crank who "doesn't believe that global warming is real".
Lots of perfectly intelligent people can believe that it is real, without signing onto the global warming package: that the warming is mostly manmade, that the greenhouse gas models offer a good prediction of exactly how the climate will be affected, that we know the effects will be catastrophical, and that the best and only thing to do is reduce CO2 emissions even to the point of throwing our economies into severe depression. When somebody as bright as Michael Crichton says that he too believed the package until he began to read the scientific papers for himself and saw how weak the science still was, I listen to him. True, Crichton is an MD by training, but when he looks at the evidence and says, you couldn't get a new drug approved this way - the models are not being independently verified, he is clearly on solid ground.
Also, the issue has now become thoroughly politicized. What right wingers are really reacting to is the anti-capitalist and socialist nature of many who have jumped on this bandwagon lately. They don't care what the science really is; they have their agenda to push. And so the right pushes back. |
