Your Not-So-Concise Guide to Global Warming Scaremongery

There are increasing signs that enlightened society is not prepared to tolerate skepticism or doubt on the issue of "global warming." Recently the Boston Globe's Ellen Goodman compared climate change doubters to "holocaust deniers."

Here's the problem--the "truth" about climate change, inconvenient or otherwise, isn't digital. Unlike, say...belief in Santa Claus, it isn't simply true or false; real or imagined; fact or fiction.

In reality, there are at least five distinct possibilities that could constitute the "truth" about global warming. The range of possibilities includes:

1. The earth is not warming. (This position is getting more difficult to hold credibly but there is still enough conflicting data to enable one to hold it without qualifying for membership in the flat earth society.)

2. The earth is warming but not because of human activity. (Fossilized tree rings and Greenland ice cores show clearly that the earth has been cyclically warming and cooling for manifold millennia—before the industrial age...even before the human age.)

3. The earth is warming, in part because of human activity, but no measures we can take will change that fact. (Some Greenpeace types would take us all back to the stone age if they could. And yet some good science suggests doing so wouldn't do jack to lower average temps over the next 50 or 100 years.)

4. The earth is warming, possibly due to human activity--and that's a good thing.

5. The earth is warming, primarily because of human activity, and if we take drastic action now, at great cost, temps can be moderated a little, which might or might not prevent the catastrophe's predicted by the alarmists. (A holder of this position can marshal lots of recent research, computer modeling and experts in support.)

6. The earth is warming, primarily because of human activity, and if we take drastic action now, at great cost, everything will be all right. But if we don't. . .well, rotting dead polar bears will soon be washing up on Oklahoma's new beachfront properties.

This is why questions like, "Do you believe global warming is real?" are idiotic. It is also why comments like Goodman's are so despicable.

Think about it. If you are a Type 2 or Type 3 believer, are you "on par with holocaust deniers" as Ellen Goodman suggests? After all, you believe the earth is getting warmer. You're just convinced that crippling the engine of the world's economy—the U.S.—won't do a bit of good for the environment and will do great harm to billions of people.

Posted by David at March 8, 2007 10:59 PM