Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.
As I've long said:
One, I'm not convinced that the temperatures today are higher over a long enough period to be considered the highest ever rather than a blip in the long run.
Two, I'm not convinced that people are at fault for any rise even if there is a significant rise in temperatures this century.
And three, and this is the most important part, I think the idea that we must cripple economic growth in order to slow any increase in temperatures is sheer stupidity. Coping with change is cheaper and more effective than trying to stem the incoming tide.
None of my position (or the position of skeptics in general) requires me to reject the mundane basics that CO2 is increasing, that people are putting CO2 into the atmosphere, or that in theory increased CO2 in the atmosphere will cause some rise in temperatures.
But we are justified in wondering whether natural fluctuations from other causes of climate change swamp whatever man does. We are justified in wondering how much temperatures will rise. We are justified in questioning the data integrity and the models that form the basis of the worst predictions. We are justified in questioning the predictions of catastrophe if temperatures do rise. And we are justified in questioning the solutions that the global warmers insist we must adopt to prevent our imminent doom.
And, of course, we are justified in wondering just what Al Gore is smoking.
Worst of all, the global warmists in their obsession are trashing the concept of science as an objective tool for understanding our world and our place in it:
The Gleick episode exposes again a movement that disdains arguing with its critics, choosing demonization over persuasion and debate. A confident movement would face and crush its critics if its case were unassailable, as it claims. The climate change fight doesn’t even rise to the level of David and Goliath. Heartland is more like a David fighting a hundred Goliaths. Yet the serial ineptitude of the climate campaign shows that a tiny David doesn’t need to throw a rock against a Goliath who swings his mighty club and only hits himself square in the forehead.
Science is never truly settled for long. As the quasi-religious attempts to chisel climate change in stone are breaking down, my hope is that science can't be scuttled for long, either.
