Global warming debate

The following is a debate I seem to have become embroiled in through a local newspaper. I am going to 'redact' the names for the purpose of this blog.

Ed:

In your editorial of February 21, 2007 you legitimized global warming and the assumptions that humans are to blame. This editorial would be simple to refute from an ideological perspective as it seems to have been written from such a perspective, even with the word 'bipartisan' in the title. To anyone that seriously thinks about the underlying reasons for the global warming 'alarmists' it is clear that these are people that accept no higher power in the universe then humans. They make up the narcissistic segment of our society and are also the same group that pushes the absence of personal responsibility for any number of society's ills (think crime or un-wanted pregnancies) yet finds humans personally responsible for changing the climate of the earth.

Still ideologically, just for another paragraph, there are 6.5 billion people on the earth; there is 326 million cubic miles of water on the earth, and each of those cubic miles contains over 1 trillion gallons of water. Simple math tells us that each human is responsible of .05 cubic miles of water, or, 50 billion gallons…do we all really think we can effect 50 billion gallons of water? It just isn't possible, and I haven't even added in the amount of land mass that each human would have to effect, not to mention the immense amount of air that surrounds the planet. But all of that is ideologically driven, true as it may be, someone from the other side will simply scoff because the warming side claims to have scientific evidence.

Quoting Al Gores questionable 'documentary' as "…expertly illustrat(ing) the effects of global warming…", and using imagery of an anecdotal nature from that movie hurts the argument for human causation rather than helping it. There are many scientists that do not believe that humans are causing global warming, but they seem to be ignored by the major media. I did a simple library search of global warming and found many articles that debunk the current theories, but one only needs to see the list provided by Human Events, volume 59, issue 26 in an article entitled "Climate Experts on Global Warming". This article lists over 20 scientists by name, and also refers to the "Over 4,000 scientists, 70 of whom are Nobel Prize winners, who signed the Heidelberg Appeal, which says that no compelling evidence exists to justify controls of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions."

There are many more reasons to move slowly when dealing with legislation concerning global warming, including economics and sociological problems, but it seems that this paper wants to ignore all of that and dive right in, further controlling human existence, just more of the coming 'nanny-state', this time, with bad science to back it up.

In response to R.G's letter to the editor, "Another View On Global Warming," Feb. 26: Global warming is a serious problem. Mr. clearly has some misguided ideals about this issue. While most are respectful toward thoughtful, serious questions about global warming, Mr. asserts that folks concerned about the environment are only liberal Democrats. It's ignorant to purport that global warming is simply political rhetoric. Americans from both parties have united to do everything possible to solve this problem, since the Bush administration has exacerbated the crisis by pulling out of the Kyoto Treaty, giving huge tax breaks to Big Oil, and regarding global warming as voodoo.

To complement his global warming denial G includes a baseless attack on Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," a movie that he clearly has not seen. Otherwise, he wouldn't make claims like how the ample evidence provided in the movie "hurts the argument for human causation rather than helping it."

It's equally silly to portray a movie that has been acclaimed by countless scientists and experts, and received an Academy Award for best documentary, as a movie that is not scientifically sound.

As for the evidence: 10 of the last 14 years were the warmest in history; Japan and the Pacific are experiencing record typhoons; Hurricane Katrina passed over Florida, doubled back and strengthened from unusually warm Gulf waters, and went from Category 3 to Category 5; cores of polar ice show CO2 is higher than ever in 250,000 years.

As for the certainty of scientists: out of 925 articles in scientific journals about global warming, there was absolutely no disagreement about the issue; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fourth report on global warming Feb. 2, which concluded global warming is "unequivocal," the IPCC being over 90 percent certain that global warming is caused by human activity; the national science academies of all the G8 nations, Brazil, China and India have signed referendums on climate change. When will America?

And last, he throws out statistics about how many miles of water and land mass there are on the Earth, and how it "just isn't possible" for humans to proportionally affect so much. While I would remind him that global warming has nothing to do with Earth density, but actually affects the polar ice caps, I would also point out that where there's a will, there's a way; and when there's a way, we can indeed move mountains

Mr. W:

After reading your response to my earlier letter, I felt I had to chime in once more in an effort to bring understanding to my point of view. Never once in the original letter did I attempt to disprove the rise in the earths temperature, I only questioned the relationship between human activity and that rise. Since you mentioned the rise, and shockingly claimed that "10 of the last 14 years were the warmest in history" I must ask: Is that human history? Biblical history? Or geological history? By treating that claim as 'evidence', the term history should have been defined. As mentioned in another letter of March 8, "find out for yourself' at http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm. This scientific site clearly shows that the earth has been significantly warmer, for eras that spanned millions of years, then it has been in the last 14.

I never once in my letter mentioned a political party, but, it seems that I may have brought light to the politics of this debate. I find it telling that Mr. W immediately attacks the current administration with regards to Kyoto, but fails to mention that the previous administration refused to ratify it as well. Mr. W also fails to mention that the leading scientists in Canada, that had once pushed for the ratification of Kyoto now admit that Kyoto fails to do anything about CO2 emissions. Mr. W also tosses out the 'big oil' meme, and resorts to calling me 'misguided', 'ignorant', and 'silly', the first a straw man argument, and the latter, ad hominem, clearly a sign of no argument at all.

Mr. W also wonders why I scoff at a movie that claims to push science, while solidifying the political agenda of the host, or why I ignore the science that comes from the U.N. I do not trust Hollywood, nor Al Gore, as they both have clearly stated political agendas, in fact, those political agendas tend to mirror the agenda of the U.N.; that agenda is world wide socialism. The attempt to place the blame for any climate change has been part of the socialist movement for quite some time now, who could ever forget that the first "earth day" was centered around the coming of the next ice age, also caused by humans.

As far as scientists, studies, models, and proof, I will readily admit that a study will achieve what the payer wants it to achieve. If the funding from an environmental group will dry up without proof of human causation, then the study will prove human causation, and on the flip side, if an oil company is paying for the study, the study will find that there is absolutely no human causation, until it is politically expedient to jump on the human causation band wagon of course. This is why I attempted to bring a little reality to the problem, educating the readers as to just how big this earth is.

Lastly, my main concern, as stated in my last paragraph, was that the legislators of Pennsylvania move slowly regarding this issue before drastic measures are taken that will only hurt those least able to afford it. The working middle class would be drowned in any energy taxes, or in the inherent costs of mandatory reductions by either auto makers or industry. Corporations never pay these bills, the end user of a product or service pays the bill.

(I must admit, I do not ike my over use of the word 'also' in my rebuttal let's see if the paper likes it!