If You See Something, Say Something (Climate)

[n2doc]

By MICHAEL E. MANNJAN. 17, 2014

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — THE overwhelming consensus among climate scientists is that human-caused climate change is happening. Yet a fringe minority of our populace clings to an irrational rejection of well-established science. This virulent strain of anti-science infects the halls of Congress, the pages of leading newspapers and what we see on TV, leading to the appearance of a debate where none should exist.

In fact, there is broad agreement among climate scientists not only that climate change is real (a survey and a review of the scientific literature published say about 97 percent agree), but that we must respond to the dangers of a warming planet. If one is looking for real differences among mainstream scientists, they can be found on two fronts: the precise implications of those higher temperatures, and which technologies and policies offer the best solution to reducing, on a global scale, the emission of greenhouse gases.

For example, should we go full-bore on nuclear power? Invest in and deploy renewable energy — wind, solar and geothermal — on a huge scale? Price carbon emissions through cap-and-trade legislation or by imposing a carbon tax? Until the public fully understands the danger of our present trajectory, those debates are likely to continue to founder.

This is where scientists come in. In my view, it is no longer acceptable for scientists to remain on the sidelines. I should know. I had no choice but to enter the fray. I was hounded by elected officials, threatened with violence and more — after a single study I co-wrote a decade and a half ago found that the Northern Hemisphere’s average warmth had no precedent in at least the past 1,000 years. Our “hockey stick” graph became a vivid centerpiece of the climate wars, and to this day, it continues to win me the enmity of those who have conflated a problem of science and society with partisan politics.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/if-you-see-something-say-something.html?_r=0

[mn9driver]

1. Cavuto spent 30 minutes this afternoon on "Global Warming Hysteria"

I was in the hotel fitness room and someone was watching Fox. I turned up my music, but watched the captions.

The main points:

1. Global warming isn't happening. Here are some nifty charts that show all the forecasts being wrong. Stupid scientists and their stupid models.

2. The head of the EPA (sorry, don't know her name) testified that she couldn't testify that the earth was warming to a Senate panel. They kept showing the same 8 second clip over and over and I had my music up, so who knows what she was actually saying?

3. China is becoming concerned about their emissions levels and they are communists.

4. The head of the UN Climate committee thinks that communists are better at handling climate change.

I shit you not. No wonder 23 percent of adults in this country are blithering idiots.