The Rant Corner
A slightly more convienient truth

Stew Shearer | contributing columnist
sshearer@smcvt.edu

Everyone believes in global warming. Scientists believe in it. The common Joe believes in it. The governments of the world believe in it, otherwise those emissions treaties would bear quite a few less signatures. Oprah sure believes in it, or maybe those exaggerated looks of shock I saw on her face as I flipped through TV channels were just there to encourage Mr. Gore. But, with all of this said, I don’t believe in global warming.

Let me rescind that, I do believe in global warming, but I neither believe that it will be the apocalypse that it is widely proclaimed to be, and I do not believe that it is the inadvertent spawn of man’s carelessness and greed. And despite what August’s issue of  Newsweek claims,  I am not a member of the ominous “denial machine”: the unofficial coalition of global warming naysayers who are funded by greedy corporations.

All exaggeration aside, the vilification of those who disagree with the current blind acceptance of global warming has become somewhat ridiculous. If you don’t believe me, then ask yourself something: if you are an environmentalist, how does this kind of article make you feel? Have you even made it this far or have you clicked the back button in annoyance? This is the attitude that has become prevalent, to click the metaphorical back button and ignore any criticism or debate.

This is a major problem, because in every area of decision-making, science most especially, debate is a necessity. Blindly accepting one theory that most of us don’t even understand can give way to the possibility for some bad decision-making. And when decisions that affect the entire world come into play, they aren’t exactly decisions we can trifle with.
           
But isn’t there a consensus on global warming?

This is something that has been claimed and spouted more times by more stupid politicians than I care to count, and rather than immediately jumping into a tirade of examples proving that there is intelligent dissension to accepted global warming theory, let me pose a question. When do we ever see a consensus anywhere? There are billions of people in the world, millions of scientists, hundreds of thousands of which are likely studying global warming right now. Can we really believe they all agree that it’s a threat?

Okay, lets try a smaller group. At St. Michael’s College, there are maybe 2,000-plus students, the vast majority of which share the same ethnicity, nationality, and, to a lesser extent, political affiliation. Could we ever expect to find consensus here? God no. Consensus at times cannot be found between two people. Even one person can be torn on an issue. The idea that there could ever be consensus throughout the world on global warming, especially in the diverse scientific community, is ludicrous.

And the dissenters are not all the CEO lapdogs or slack jawed yokels who “ain’t gonna let them dang hippies take me truck!” The dissenters include men like Stephen McIntyre, who is spending $5,000 of his own money to investigate and eventually prove that the famous “hockey stick” graph developed by Dr. Michael Mann and used by the United Nations (UN) in 2001 as evidence of global warming was created using a mathematical model designed to skew data. They include David Demming, who, while speaking to a British newspaper, described the efforts of some scientists to hide from the public the facts concerning the Medieval Warming period:

“With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change…One of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said: 'We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.'”

The 1996 graph presented to the UN about global warming included the Medieval Warming Period, the 2001 graph did not. For those of you unaware of the fact, between about 900 and 1300 CE, there occurred a warming period in which temperatures rose higher than they are today - the ice caps receded and man did not fall into oblivion. Immediately following this early example of naturally occurring global warming, the Earth went through a short cooling period in which temperatures dropped and the ice caps came back. We had no cars, industry or mass pollution sources beyond cattle back then, but I suppose man caused that one too, right?

But what about “An Inconvenient Truth?”

I respect Al Gore’s decision to take the high road and not produce the kind of sensationalist bull plop that Michael Moore might try to sell. This said, no matter how much integrity the man might have in defending his cause, just like Moore’s films, most of his points are easily debunked. If you don’t believe me then please read “Alarmist global warming claims melt under scientific scrutiny” written by James Taylor for the Chicago-Sun Times. He speaks about the matter much more eloquently than I ever could.

I do believe that global warming occurs in nature, but that man has very little influence over it. No matter how much we cut emissions, no matter how many trashy summer blockbusters we put out starring the guy from Donnie Darko (his name escapes me, just as I wish the two hours I spent watching The Day After Tomorrow would), global warming will occur and pass. But we need to debate it.

Whether or not I am right or wrong, we need good, genuine debate. Not debate focused around silly accusations of pandering to corporations. Not the shouting down of dissenters or supporters, but real debate. Society only benefits when opposing parties talk to each other. After all, if I am wrong, and the people who would agree with me are wrong, then what harm will it cause the world if we’re proven so? Won’t the global warming activists of the world only benefit from demonstrating in an intelligent manner that the naysayers are wrong and it is indeed a threat?