Tuesday, July 17, 2007

on global warming arguments

I've been looking at the comments on the Gazette website following the Bill Ballard anti-global warming guest editorial the other day. It seems to me that the arguments over there are mostly the same old conspiracy and paranoid theories. The Gazette has a rating system in and some of the most reasoned and calm comments get the worst ratings.

I have a lot of objections to the Gazette comments. The biggest one is that they let people attack other people rather than talk about the issues. The regulars get on and bloviate on their particular political pet horse and when someone posts something rational, they do their best to attack the person, not the issue. On global warming, it is pretty obvious that those who have read the least on it have the strongest opinions for some conspiracy bringing it on. They cite "a lot of scientists" without giving who they are, their qualifications or saying where they've published.

They attack the number of years of knowledge we have on climate without realizing that the ice core samples from Greenland, Antarctica and Siberia all seem to agree that this is the worst warming problem in thousands of years. Some posters there even state that it's a big government conspiracy without realizing that the biggest government we've ever had, this administration, has fought curtailing greenhouse gases from day 1. They also argue about the big gun right now on global warming, Al Gore, and claim he's making tons of money and advantage out of it. If Al Gore is a hypocrite, and I don't believe for one minute that he is, that has nothing to say about about whether his facts are straight on warming.

I also think that people need to follow the money. Who benefits if we refuse to take any efforts and let the warming get away from us? First, if no one acts to stop the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, then the big oil companies, auto companies, and their ilk benefit and continue to rack up super profits. If the effects of global warming occur as scientists think they will, but we don't take any steps to prepare for it and limit it, then the big corporations will also benefit because they will be the ones who will be receiving aid from governments to help people who have to move away from rising seas, like the natives in Alaska. We know how our money is being spent in Iraq and in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. I urge people, if they have doubts about who's doing things on global warming out of altruism or out of greed, follow the money.

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