I find it extremely informative to read other people's opinions on global warming and climate change. There is an incredible diversity of opinion. Some scientists do not communicate well and get lost in minute, and often trivial details. On some of the discussion forums I visit, (MSNBC 's "climate change", and "environment" are examples), I find many people hopelessly uneducated, religious fanatics, mystics, ultra-socialist environmentalists, blindly naive haters of everything "Bush", or just plain stupid.
I think it is important to listen to what a variety of people think, because remember, most everyone can vote. Somebody likes Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons; and I just keep shaking my head and wondering WHY???? So being a scientist I guess I'm always curious, and want to understand. I guess that makes me a skeptic.
But one place I find some very intelligent discussion taking place is on amazon.com. Is fabulously easy to access. You type in an author, or a book title or even a subject. When you find a book you want, or one that sounds interesting, you can read "customer reviews". There are some really sharp people out there reading and thinking, which gives me some degree of hope that the people preaching gloom and doom over global warming will eventually be revealed as grossly wrong.
Here are some excerpts of reviews about the book "The Politically Incorrect Guide To Global Warming", by Christopher C. Horner.
Reviewer:
thefonz (Niagara Falls) - See all my reviewsMr. Horner did a very thorough analysis of current popular and widely believed commentary about global climate change. Due to the fact that the media tends to oversimplify the topic in order to create fear and impact for ratings, most of his work was about putting cogent, rational perspective into this debate.............(and)
One extremely important lesson in Mr. Horner's work (and one that immediately shows that some reviewers haven't read the book, and if they did, something was lost in the translation from English to English) is that big oil and government (meetings with the Enron, President and VP in 1994, Ken Lay, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, respectively) were designing plans to basically create a government supported cartel of domestic oil producers. On top of this, energy companies are the ones who get the big taxpayer funded subsidies for alternate energy research and development. ............(and)
It's that last point - your money - where Mr. Horner hits hard. The eagerness of people to support non-governmental movements, ones that are full of unelected persons supporting more layers of regulation in the private citizen's life, under the guise of the greater good is something of concern........(and finally)
There was one surprise. I always thought Al Gore was a lawyer and had a brilliant academic career. So said his handlers and marketing people. Mr. Gore eeked out a BA, which included two science courses with grades of C+ and D (the D reserved for Man's Place in Nature, ironically), yet Mr. Gore plants himself in a career that is about science. He attended, but did not complete, graduate school. This brings back memories of Mr. Gore's condescending eye-rolling in the debates preceding the 2000 election. It's fair to question the motives of all strong opinions in the climate issue, but Mr. Gore's in particular, should be equally suspect, especially given his "qualifications". This is where a "be worried, be very worried" applies.
There's much more to read here, most of it good, all of it interesting.
Peter
4 comments:
I wish some of the people leading this new environmental movement were as curious and welcoming of all ideas and opinions as you. But then this has been all one-sided from the start.
It seems many of these "environmentalists" do not want debate, or testing of their theories. They are activists, not scientists. It is a political movement, not a scientific one.
I suppose this means that trying to use factual science as a tool in fighting the global warming nonsense is futile. I keep hearing people say "do you believe in global warming or not?" I think most people prefer to "believe" rather than question, think and reason. It's a lot easier to simply believe and trust that those in power will protect and provide for us.
This may have deformed into a political movement but it was supposedly based on scientific evidence.
Any "real" debate by those who do question and think has to involve the questionable science behind Global Warming.
Sure we can continue to have a debate about science. But like I said, this issue of global warming has been taken over by politics and is being used by politicians around the world.
They've created fear and now they claim they have the solution. This gives them power and control and tax money, which gives them more control.
My question is how do we escape this trap we've fallen into? (We meaning us taxpayers.) Will it only change when it begins costing us so much we finally rebel and vote the environmental socialists out of office?
Post a Comment