Climate Debate Daily shows climate news in two side by side columns. One is in support of global warming and one is in dissent.
The funny part is that there seems to be no real debate. The Global Warming Calls to action side is full of scientific reports confirming global warming, but the Dissenting Voices side is only shrill political invective slamming anyone who is worried about climate change.
From the news articles collected here it seems fairly obvious that the Global Warming dissenters are a fringe group with a political agenda. Of course, they will say that this this is because the media is biased against them. (They say this continually).
My own opinion is that it seems obvious that humans are polluting the earth. Whether global warming is a threat or not, we should follow the same course of action. We should reduce polluting atmospheric emissions (including CO2). We should treat all waste water before it reaches the rivers. We should reduce our dependency on oil (for any number of reasons, including environmental, political and economic). We should reduce solid waste and learn to recycle it instead of using land fills and off shore dumping. We should stop using pesticides on our crops and stop using antibiotics and hormones on our meat, dairy and poultry.
My opinion is that the environmental debate has focused on global warming as a stalking horse. There seems to be an arbitrary line in the sand and the anti-environmentalists can throw that sand in their opponents eyes and delay any action. I feel that the bigger picture is being ignored because of this debate. I am at heart a conservationist and I think that nature can be managed, but first we have to stop destroying our environment, so, for the time being I am an environmentalist. I don’t thing that global warming should be the center of the debate. Global Warming aside, there are real dangers from air pollution, water pollution and food pollution, and they will kill us before the oceans flood us out of our homes.
One Comment
Hi Keith, in response to your post:
While I somewhat agree in what your saying “global warming” is occurring, whether this is caused by mans (anthropogenic) activity is the issue. Global warming however as proposed by Al Gore and the like is political. It all (Al Gore) began when he released his “inconvenient truth” video and the IPCC jumped on the band wagon to cozy up to it. Initially the IPCC etc began to say that: “All scientists agree. The Science is in.” That's when my Spider senses went up and said, “Wait a second, something‘s fishy here. All scientists agree?” That's like the sleazy used car salesman that says, “Trust me this Camero C-9 was only used by a little old lady to go to church on Sundays.” or the Amway guy that says, “I can show you how to make a million,” yeah right. The media loves this “global warming” fad because it creates hysteria. And hysteria is what creates news. You'll never hear the media admit there is another voice (the global warming skeptics) to this “global warming” issue, it picks their pocket. Global warming sells. It's sexy. But back up a second, not all scientists and climatologists agree with the IPCC‘s polemic nor Greenpeace's grand standing.
The “global warming” we are witnessing now (imho) and many scientists are saying (not all) are natural earth/solar cycles. The Al Gore band wagon crowd may have to admit this as well. Not all the science is in. For instance, there have been many times in the glacial record that tells us that CO2 increases have been even higher at that time in the past then even now and this has been during ice age events long before human activity on the planet began. In fact if anything (the calm before the storm) our planet is getting colder. There is no evidence that suggests CO2 drives temperature increases. Not that I want to debate this issue but for every report you can find that supports “global (Al Gore) warming” I can find one to support against it and so on. Remember Al Gore is a an American politician with a political axe to grind. Most people realize this.
As for the UN (IPCC is part of the UN) it was Greenpeace and the WWF together launched an aggressive campaign in the early 1970's to put a halt to the use of DDT because they suspect that DDT was causing wildlife complications. So along with the “Environmental Defense” they got together and pressured the UN to have DDT banned world-wide. Meanwhile DDT was at that time one of the most effective weapons to combat Malaria in 3rd world countries. With me so far? The 3rd world used DDT to spray individual houses not just crops. DDT in 3rd world countries was to precious a commodity to waste on spraying crops. As a result of this ban of DDT millions of people died needlessly from Malaria because they didn't have DDT available. How's that for an inconvenient truth? But Al Gore and Greenpeace don't want you to know about this.
Our own Federal Government under Liberal Jean Cretin back in 1999 revoked Greenpeace tax exempt status saying that “Greenpeace serves no public good.” Yes, mankind is polluting the planet and yes there are some things we can do. You have made an excellent list of some suggestions. All the dissenting (skeptic) environmental voice wants is to have honest study on “global warming” before we do something reckless like adapting Kyoto. There is so much we don't know about our climate, to react out of hand and not admitting there are 2 sides to this story is going down a dangerous path. That's all I'm saying.
Thanks
Jim Shannon