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.
