I no longer make global-warming arguments with any hope of changing adherents' minds or even getting them to consider alternative evidence. If you express the slightest skepticism, they roll their eyes and say they no longer care to argue with people who insist on sticking their heads in the sand. But it's still worth pointing out that people who are absolutely sure about something are relying more on faith than science and recommending consideration of a skeptic's reasoning. Here's some healthy skepticism from George Will in the current Newskweek:
We do not know how much we must change our economic activity to produce a particular reduction of warming. And we do not know whether warming is necessarily dangerous. Over the millennia, the planet has warmed and cooled for reasons that are unclear but clearly were unrelated to SUVs. Was life better when ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there? Are we sure the climate at this particular moment is exactly right, and that it must be preserved, no matter the cost?
That would seem to be an obvious point: Why is this particular climate at this particular point in time the best one possible? But that is heresy to people who have made up their minds that we are going to global-warming hell in a man-made handbasket and that the only redemption for this sin is total government control and a massive redistribution of wealth from advanced societies to the developing world.
Comments
Geez, ... I didn't think I was THAT bad, ...
So now the argument has changed from "it's probably occuring but severe climate change might be tolerable" Progress I suppose.
Do you really believe that an ice-age or rapidly rising sea levels forcing entire populations inland is a direction we wouldn't mind going? What about the effects on the world economy?
This new argument is so silly that I think I like the head-in-the-sand denial better - it seemed less ridiculous...
"This new argument is so silly that I think I like the head-in-the-sand denial better - it seemed less ridiculous..."
New argument? You don't like "new" arguments??!!
In my lifetime, the weather experts went from saying there was a new Ice Age coming (and it was our fault) to saying Global Warming is occurring (and it is our fault)
I think it is a basic human tendency to believe that actions we take can affect the weather (or the climate, or whether the weather gods will alow the harvest to be plentiful)....and when we observe changes we become frightened and start wondering what burnt offerings the weather gods might be pleased by.
Given that reliable weather records simply don't go back very far, and given that the sensors we utilize are constantly changing (making comparisons even within the short time that for which we HAVE records approximations, at best), assertions that climate change is "faster" or "slower" than "normal" are impossible to buttress....and that's even BEFORE we get to the question of what causes climate change (other than, like, the SUN!)
But whatever.
You don't know what you are talking about...
"You don't know what you are talking about..."
Well, I do know it is pointless to argue with a self-appointed, all-seeing, all-knowing latter-day shaman of the weather
Accompanying a cartoon showing Winter clobbering Global Warming in a boxing ring, cartoonist Sam Rysind writes:
"You don
Maybe the most entertaining thing about the whole issue is that it finally succeeded in tempting people to take Al Gore seriously.
Personally, I put my money on "Al Nino."
Al Nino wins the 2006-07 Best Factual Explanation Award for this season's odd temperatures (or should I say "temp-a-churs") -- some warmer, some colder than average.
My question about the issue would go more like this:
What does it matter the cause of global overheating if it's honestly about to melt the icecaps and kill off the polar bear species?
Either we have the means to reduce the damage, by concerted action, or we don't.
If science has calculated that we have the power to put the brakes on the disappearance of the Arctic, the oceans' rise, the flooding of Coney Island and the drowning of the bear species, wouldn't we take the necessary steps regardless of who's right about how we got here?
Can it be that this debate is not really about dangerous temperatures, but rests on people's tacit assumption that if the cause ISN'T global warming, we can all justify doing nothing to lower the thermostat? If the poles melt, what difference the cause?
In short, if your steak catches fire, you don't stand around the grill arguing, at least until you've doused your dinner and taken your meat off the heat.