Is global warming worth worrying about?
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A man who doubts the global-warming hypothesis is asking for trouble. He might just as well question the virgin birth in St. Peter’s or praise a sirloin steak in Benares. He is sure to be damned by everyone. Climate change has become the threat du jour. The whole earth is going green to protect itself – every newspaper tells us so. And anyone who stands in the way will be treated like a wicked, dangerous kook.
Climate change got off on the wrong foot when, in 1974, Time magazine ran a cover story: “Another Ice Age”. Now, Time warns us that the globe is burning up and no one giggles. Instead, the media and the activists march along with the sure confidence of real fanatics, convinced that the world is going to hell and only they can save it. Politicians, corporate do-gooders and investors are not far behind… happily hoping to get something out of it.
You’d think that about as many people would prefer a little extra warmth as would loathe it. More time at the beach. Growing seasons would be longer, too. Instead, they act as if it were doomsday. Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, in case you have not been following the spectacle closely enough, is both the current secretary general of the United Nations and a man whose feet seem to have left the ground. Writing in the International Herald Tribune, the UN man asserts that “the science is clear. The earth’s warming is unequivocal; we humans are its principal cause.”
How Mr. Moon knows these things with such certainty is not revealed. The science is anything but clear. Even some of the world’s greatest scientists are scratching their heads. The global-warming hypothesis maintains that higher CO2 levels are caused by humans… leading to a hotter planet. But a quick reading of the literature yields more questions than proof. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have apparently risen 21% in the last century. But during the Depression of the 1930s, when human CO2 emissions dropped 30%, CO2 in the atmosphere continued to rise. And during the Eocene period there was three to four times as much CO2 in the atmosphere – 20 million years before the first SUV was built.
One of the great scientists of our time, Freeman Dyson, concludes: “Concerning the climate models, I know enough of the details to be sure that they are unreliable. They are full of fudge factors…” Meanwhile, Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, wants the Group of 8 to agree not to allow the world’s temperature to rise more than two degrees centigrade. We know our governments can control the rate of inflation – with wide variations and occasional blow-ups. But this is the first time we’ve heard that they can control the temperature of the planet! Details to follow… we suppose.
But leave it to our favourite columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, to come up with the most asinine comment of all. “…[I]t is inevitable that manufacturing clean, green power systems, appliances, homes and cars will be the next great global industry. It has to be, or we will not survive as a species.”
We’ve always admired Mr. Friedman’s ability to look into the future and come up with ways to improve it even before it happens. The columnist then gives his list of policies designed to save us from extinction – such as having the US government buy more solar and wind power “with only US-based manufacturers able to compete for contracts”. You’d think with the survival of the whole human race at stake, the man might let an Englishman sell some juice to the US government.
Meanwhile, at the grass-roots level, the fight against carbon dioxide is a spectacle on its own. A group was formed recently to campaign against airline traffic, especially on short-hauls, on the theory that airplanes use too much fossil fuel. The activists made one good decision, deciding to call themselves “Plane Stupid”. From there, things went downhill. To draw attention to the cause, they determined to occupy the London headquarters of EasyJet. They invaded the building and locked arms around it so that no one could enter. Then, someone must have pointed out that EasyJet’s headquarters were in Luton, not London. The world-improvers were at EasyGroup, which has nothing to do with air travel.
Is global warming worth worrying about? What do we know? But, with so much money at stake, we’re suspicious. The most likely remedy is a new tax on carbon-based fuels, designed to raise prices and discourage users. Who will collect and redistribute the money? If you guessed the Girl Scouts or the Kiwanis Clubs, you are a naïve moron. The tax will be collected by governments – the largest users of fossil fuel, the greatest contributors to the alleged danger… and soon its greatest beneficiaries.
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