RSS Feed MenuIs the case for climate change like a house of cards or a cargo net? The global warming deniers would have you believe that any minor misstep should flatten the entire theory. A cargo net, on the other hand, can have several links severed but still carry a lot of weight.
We should never ignore valid new data, even if (make that especially if) it contradicts our current mindset, but real conservatives would be wise to remember that most “aha moments” come from the Inspector Clouseaus of the world. Rarely can one say with certainty that “this changes everything!” Rosetta stones are few and far between — not everyday occurrences like the frantic anti-greens would have you believe.
Just as the news almost always distracts us from the important, headlines like “Coolest Year in a Decade” deserve less attention than boring but more informative trend data. Should it matter that the coolest year in a decade occurred in the hottest decade on record and was itself one of the ten warmest years since the invention of the thermometer? Yes, it should—just as saying, “March was one of the best months ever for the Dow!” means something different depending upon whether the calendar says 2003 or 2009.
Thinking clearly about climate change can be difficult, especially when Al Gore and George Will both want you to stop deeply pondering the science.
The former Vice President at times seems convinced that time spent thinking is time not spent acting — no more hemming and hawing, do something! He will still give the 3 hour slide show (complete with some very good big picture information) but he’s happy enough if a polar bear picture does the job too. He needs masses, not necessarily educated masses.
And so Gore’s not above stretching the truth if it makes the truth more memorable. Why rely solely on the very strong link between climate change and mid-latitude glacier decline when you can oversell global warming’s impact on the iconic snows of Kilimanjaro for dramatic effect?
Like a brawny boxer who casually drops his guard to go for an ill-conceived round-house hook, Al Gore sometimes exposes himself to unnecessary counterpunches. A steady jab and the overpowering reach of the science should easily carry the day, but Big Al needlessly allows his opponents to land cheap shots that keep faint hope alive in the other corner. And, of course, Gore is a disciplined fighter compared to many on the Left who are happy to highlight the sensational to the detriment of the sensible.
George Will, on the other hand, is convinced that Gore’s action plan is horrible, and thus the normally clear headed thinker is willing to utilize his influential column to distract any fence-sitter from meaningful inquiry. If some news outlets over-hype a drastic drop in sea-ice around the North Pole, just point out that the frozen Arctic made a fantastic rebound and conveniently neglect to mention any long-term trends (especially when those trends show less and thinner ice). Sure a few experts and a pesky newspaper ombudsman might take you to task, but the point isn’t really to educate, it’s to plant seeds of doubt about anything that they say. In short, make sure the storybook analogy is Chicken Little not Pollyanna.
Of course Mr. Will isn’t alone in squinting to make the data match his own expectations. An otherwise extremely well read conservative publisher once dismissed my requests for a deeper discussion of global warming by citing a ranting San Diego weatherman, hardly the sort of authority he would turn to for other big questions.
Ranting, though, seems to be preferred style these days among those who have convinced themselves that rhetorical volume alone can bring down the house of cards. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Chris Horner, author of the subtly titled Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed, would have you believe that this charade was created because scientists are greedy for grant money. Conversely, Fox’s “junk science expert” Steven Milloy is sure that the greens are so anti-money that their guiding principle is not the health of the Earth but a deep desire to take away your comfortable way of life. With Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them, Milloy boldly challenges Horner for best conspiracy theory title. If only Oliver Stone weren’t so liberal surely movie deals would follow.
Undoubtedly, authors like Will, Horner, and Milloy highlight some completely true anecdotes of green excess. However, having ferreted out a handful of bad apples, they boldly over-conclude that we should avoid fruit altogether.
Clearly, though, climate change science is not a house of cards. The basic fabric of the argument is quite sound, as I have tried myself to note elsewhere. Those who really want to know for themselves would do well to explore the works of Sir John Houghton, perhaps the most un-Gorian man alive. With impeccable scientific credentials and the trust of the late Margaret Thatcher, plus a personal tendency to undersell rather than hype, Houghton seeks not the limelight but the truth. Those who seek the truth on this important issue would do well to seek him out.
We do need to start making sound personal and national decisions to preserve the world that has been entrusted to our care. Avoiding the fallacy that the science is teetering on the brink of collapse is a good place to start, but it’s an inadequate place to stop. Al Gore’s certainly right about that.
Chekote // Apr 6, 2009 at 2:04 pm
“barker13: The Dems aren’t entirely innocent either:”OMG, sinz is posting this? Naaaah…
Ryan // Apr 7, 2009 at 2:44 am
I would just like to rescind my hopeful comments at the beginning about the prospect of a new, more science-friendly Republican party. Its clearly a long ways away.
sinz54 // Apr 7, 2009 at 8:23 am
Ryan: Even worse than global warming is how popular conservatives like Ann Coulter attack Darwin’s theory of evolution. The flirtation of social conservatives with creationism is the most anti-science aspect of modern conservatism.It makes the conservative movement appear like backward ignoramuses in the eyes of the college-educated young. And if we lose the younger generation, inevitably we will lose the nation.Part of the problem is that the GOP base seems to have written off the younger generation as hopeless. The few times that young conservatives have written articles on Townhall.com about the need to appeal to young voters, the response they get from the embittered GOP base is that today’s young people are too soft and too naive and too idealistic, and they do immoral things like binge drinking and having sex, and we didn’t behave like that when we were younger, and it was a mistake to give 18 year olds the right to vote, so who cares about them. (I asked: If today’s young people are so hopeless, why do we allow them to enlist in our armed forces? No answer.)One more thing: Please don’t engage in personal attacks on “Chekote.” He has a right to believe anything he wants without being insulted.
barker13 // Apr 7, 2009 at 8:53 am
Re: Sinz54; 1:29 PM –”The Dems aren’t entirely innocent either:”(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)See… I knew you could say it, Sinz!(*WINK*)”And science depends on objectivity–which seems to be an increasingly rare commodity these days.”Fair enough… but it seems we see different “sides” as being the truly objective ones.(*SHRUG*)BTW… V=IR (*THUMBS UP*) (*CHUCKLE*) Re: Ryan; 2:44 AM –Hmm… sounds like “Ryan’s way or the highway,” folks; and they call *us* the extremists!(*LAUGHING MY ASS OFF*)Ryan… dude… save the faith based certitude for Church.Re: Ryan; 2:47 AM –Ahh…!!! And obnoxious too!(*CHUCKLING*)Re: Sinz54; wrote 12 minutes ago –Sinz… dude or dudette… we’re talking climate change, not evolution. But, yeah… in your defense I can see why you’d rather talk Coulter than Ehrlich.(*SMIRK*) (*SNORT*)As to the college “educated” young… the problem is that for the average liberal arts student (who *is* the average college student) is mainly being exposed only to one perspective re: climate change. http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReportLike it or not, Ryan, there are two sides (lots of sides in fact) regarding what’s fact and what’s not regarding climate change.BILL
petty boozshwa // Apr 7, 2009 at 9:04 am
A couple of points I’d like to throw into the discussion:The Global Warming crowd, starting with Al Gore, would be a lot more credible if their passion caused them to rethink some of their preferred positions, like opposition to nuclear power or let-’er-rip immigration policies. All the coercive regulation in the world won’t help if we keep doubling our population every thirty years. I’m old enough to remember when economists like Lester Thurow were predicting Americans would be carting the Japanese around in rickshaws by now, and their computer models, anecdotes, statistical charts and data were a lot more complete and compelling than the proof of global climate change – scientists still can’t build a model that takes the inputs from 1966 and predicts what happened in 1986 – the earth’s ecology is just to dynamic and self regulating.Isn’t fresh water the most precious commodity on earth? Even assuming, for argument’s sake, that Gore’s predictions are correct, we live in a world that can’t stop a nut in North Korea from firing a missile, how are we going to regulate the global economy. Taxing jobs away from the west and driving them to the developing world doesn’t make sense. Why not develop long-term projects for replenishing aquifers and watersheds that could store the fresh water released?
sinz54 // Apr 7, 2009 at 10:07 am
petty boozshwa: In case you haven’t noticed, the standard of living of working families in America *has* been steadily eroded in our lifetimes. I’m old enough to remember when a husband could earn enough money to support his entire family (including 3 or 4 children), without his wife having to work too. In recent decades, this decline in the standard of living has been masked, by having both husband and wife work, and by having fewer children or even no children to support.But, as Mark Steyn has pointed out incessantly, a society that tries to get along by not having enough children to keep its population growing is going to be in serious trouble eventually.
petty boozshwa // Apr 7, 2009 at 10:18 am
sinz54 I agree that the working family’s lot has eroded since a husband/breadwinner could support the family – now the wife has to earn approximately 45% of the family income to cover tax obligations. Don’t know how this relates to my post, though. When Lester Thurow was writing his warnings the real estate value of Emperor Hirohito’s 300 acre palace grounds in downtown Tokyo was appraised higher than the value of all the real estate in the entire state of California — sometimes things change direction, weather patterns, 401(k)s, etc.On David Frum’s posting on this issue I saw your full-throated endorsement of Bush’s justification for the war against Saddam Hussein; while I welcome your conversion I don’t think it logically follows we should endorse a war against climate change the same way.
sinz54 // Apr 7, 2009 at 5:44 pm
petty boozshwa: In the case of Saddam “possibly” giving WMD to terrorists, the Bush Admininstration acted on that, to launch a 6 year war that cost over a trillion dollars and thousands of lives, all on the slim probability that Saddam would give his WMD to terrorists. Some 90% of conservatives approved of that judgment call.Now many of those same conservatives are opposing doing anything about global warming, until we are 100% sure that it is for real.Why was it OK to launch a war on Saddam for a slim probability of the Saddam-WMD-terrorist threat being real, but not OK to do anything about global warming where the probability of it being real is much larger than “slim”?Or conversely, if you want to postpone doing anything about global warming till we’re 100% sure the threat is real, shouldn’t we have also postponed doing anything about Saddam till we were 100% sure that threat was real?Why the disparity?
Churl // Apr 7, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Cargo net? More like a cargo cult.
Wilkerson // Jun 28, 2010 at 6:54 am
The best way to survive climate change is to prevent it.
1. Reduce your climate by 1˚C
Dimming down your heaters during the winter period by just 1˚C will save us from 225 kilograms of CO2 emissions per year cut your heating bills by 4%.
2. Change a lightbulb
If every home in the UK would switch one bulb to an energy-saving bulb we could shut down one entire power plant rightaway.
3. Stop leaving equipment on Stand By mode
Did you know that if you left your radio or TV on Stand By for a day, they’d still consume energy. Turn them completely off or even unplug them and you’ll save 10% of your energy bill.
Global Warming Survival Center