On global warming, leave science to the scientists.
The position of conservatives and many libertarians is in favor of free speech and press, the Second Amendment, pro-life, national security, fewer taxes and lesser governmental bureaucracy, and others. But the conservative position on global warming is flat-out wrong. Worse, it has become dogmatic.
Theodore Roosevelt was the first great conservationist who did much to preserve our country’s natural beauty. The fact that he was a Republican should not be forgotten, but it has been.
Then, in the 1970s, Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” alerted people to the dangers of pollution. The modern-day ecology movement could be said to have sprung from Carson’s book (it may be remembered that during the same time, America’s symbol, the bald eagle, had become almost extinct).
Leftists swarmed over this issue because of its potential anti-business element; when this occurred, conservatives in this movement — as happens so many times again and again — instead of fighting them off, left in disgust and laziness. Predictably, absurd assertions began to be made and promoted.
Nutjobs like those on Earth First did a lot to discredit legitimate goals. Fortunately, scientists worked steadily at the problems and were able to reverse the trend in many areas, with spectacular success stories.
Simultaneously, there was the overpopulation scare, whereby it was predicted by scaremongers that by 1982 there would only be standing room on the earth. The doomsday predictions of this movement, of the extremists in the ecology movement and of other crusades, led to many people becoming justifiably contemptuous and the dismissal of doomsday predictions, a case of Aesop’s “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” effect.
So now we come to global warming, or climate change.
We see the exact scenario playing out. Scientists gave a warning about the state of the world, leftists swarmed over the issue blaming capitalism and making absurd statements, conservatives left it in disgust denying the issue altogether (also making absurd statements), and scientists again working in the background.
Leftists have seized on conservatives’ denial of global warming by claiming that they are anti-science. But the truth is that when it comes to many scientific subjects (e.g., IQ, GMOs, vaccines, sociobiology), leftists can also be said to be enemies of science.
Politics is irrelevant to an opinion on overall science. Besides, leftists have targeted science in recent years to conform to their ideological PC insanity.
There is a confusing mishmash on the internet, network news and print media concerning climate change, and one often sees non-scientists stating that so many thousands of scientists believe that global warming is definitely man-made and other non-scientists stating that so many thousands of scientists believe that there is no global warming.
The main culprits to this massive obfuscation are journalists and politicians (who cite nameless scientists) with their verbal diarrhea. They should both shut up, end their literary pollution and listen to actual scientists. For a change.
Additionally, part of the confusion stems from using unreliable computer models. As can be seen from hurricane tracking computer models, they are not reliable.
Global warming is indeed taking place due to three factors:
1. There is a steady number of research papers documenting the effects of global warming, and these are from entomologists, ichthyologists, ornithologists, etc.
Anyone who thinks that scientists from all these different fields have conspired together to pull off a hoax is a cretin who doesn’t know the difference between a nematode and feldspar. Besides, for what purpose?
2. There is pictorial evidence of the effects of excessive, global warming (e.g., retreating glaciers).
3. I can look out the window. The green forest that was there? Almost all brown. Is that a hoax? Some towns have run out of water. Is that a hoax? Some lakes have dried up. Is that a hoax?
The Western third of the United States, particularly California, has been experiencing gargantuan fires in the summers for the past decade, uninterrupted, that were previously absent. Is that a hoax? Nor is America the only country experiencing massive forest fires. So have Spain, Portugal, Greece, Australia, Canada. Are they in, too, on the hoax?
The writing is on the wall.
At some point, you have to face facts, no matter how unpleasant (such as, in my case, that girls in their twenties no longer find me attractive and instead cover their eyes and run away).
In regard to global warming, a decision tree is, therefore, in order.
First, there is/is not abnormal global warming. Second, if there is, it is man-made/not man-made/partly man-made. Third, for each decision, an open-ended, what should we do?
The squabbling over whether the problem is man-made or not is, at this point, moot. It’s too late to arrest the cascading trend. Instead, contingency plans should be worked out (the idea that we should abandon fossil fuels is absurd; it is the lifeblood of modern civilization, without which world civilizations would collapse and mass starvation ensue).
I suggest ending the massive flow of illegal immigrants who take up scant water resources. My second suggestion is to find a feasible saltwater/freshwater conversion process.
Because it doesn’t look good for the western third of the nation. Or the Mediterranean countries.
Armando Simón is the author of The U and A Cuban from Kansas.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.