Just a Little Global Warming

Me: Dan, are you here to combat what you would consider to be bad politics or bad science?

Dan: Both

Me: Why does science, purportedly objective, have to be influenced by politics? It would be a lot more amicable to debate the science if it didn’t have to involve governmental policy.

Dan: It has to be political for the people who are the alarmists who promote what they feel is a life-saving issue. They need the force of government behind them to make it happen. For those taking advantage of this scare, the manipulators, it must be political to attain the control that this movement can afford them.

Me: So the alarmists [those who advocate policy to thwart global warming] and all the people who believe today’s conventional wisdom are being duped?

Dan: Yup

A reception followed this four-hour-long congregation of naysayers. Indeed, they were in good company, educating themselves and churning out ideas and support about what to do/how to change the direction the country seems to be going. Just as today’s environmental activists fight for what they feel is a life and death issue, so too, do these folks, in the hopes that valuable resources aren’t misdirected toward an unprecedented power and a baseless cause.

Conclusion:  I can accept that the masses can be wrong about man-made global warming. All who have ever lived have been largely influenced by their society, their peers and media. Ask any sociologist and they’ll explain to you the susceptibility large populations have of falling prey to good public relations.  It’s also in many people’s desire to have a problem in their midst, an issue they can come save the day with. People are easy prey to such contrivances. But to fall prey a predator needs to exist. In the eyes of Dan McGrath and others, the predators are politicians and businesspeople looking to gain from others’ concern for the environment.

But what about these masses—the attendees—what’s their incentive? I can accept that this group of American’s are also frightened of change and fearful of authority. They are quick to assume that their leadership is being controlling and taking advantage of them. People on this side of the debate can buy into their own “sky is falling” drama—not from climate change, but from government policy.

Certain members of each side are actually quite similar in their fear. The fear is just attributed to different causes.

This conclusion helps to alleviate some of my dissonance. Perhaps it’s in the masses, not the scientific community, where similarities between sides are more readily available.

I like to go back to my question to Dan about the politicization of this subject. And with that I ask the readers: What would be your opinion of this topic if it was not political? It’s nice and refreshing to consider a topic, so typically and emotionally loaded, and examine it as a purely scientific one. It’s a pretty no-nonsense question when you think about it: do you think man has contributed to global warming?

It’s nice to know there are numbers to examine. Plain, objective numbers that cooler heads and neutral folks can examine to determine truth in this argument. So what does the science today say? Well, when gathering the data, science truly doesn’t know what affects the temperatures on Earth. It is all speculation.

For those attending the Minnesota Symposium on Climate Change, their concern is that speculation has ceased and that erroneous laws scientific and social are being set.