Climate Change Is a Scientific Reality, Not a Political Debate
Posted March 17, 2010 in Solving Global Warming
Climate denials have reached a fever pitch in the past few weeks. Anti-science screeds have littered the pages of the major newspapers and dominated talk radio.
From a New York Post editorial called “The EPA’s Climate Con” to a Rush Limbaugh show in which he says “Al Gore…ought to be subject to being sued” because global warming is a “hoax,” commentators have been trashing documented scientific evidence.
What I found most alarming about this trend is the fact that the media coverage and political debate so often take these rants at face value.
The scientific consensus confirms the dangers of climate change. Yet rarely are climate deniers called on to cite fact-based, peer-reviewed evidence for their rebuttals.
Instead, they spout unsubstantiated claims that fly in the face of climate data compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Academy of Sciences, the Pentagon, the National Intelligence Council, and the CIA.
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu characterized this trend in a recent interview: “If you look at the climate skeptics, I would have to say honestly, what standard are they being held to? It’s very asymmetric. They get to say anything they want.” (See multiple examples at MediaMatters.)
Inadvertently, Marc Morano, one of the driving forces behind denier website Climate Depot, identified the right’s key strategy. At the Accuracy in Media Awards at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference, Morano said climate change is “a political movement. It is not a scientific movement.”
But Morano and his cronies don’t get to classify what constitutes scientific fact according to their likes and dislikes. I am happy to engage in a political debate about which policies will most effectively solve global warming. But there is no debate about the fact that a third of the Arctic’s perennial ice has vanished in just 30 years or that the past decade was the hottest on record.
As the esteemed Dr. George Woodwell, the founder of the Woods Hole Research Center, and long-time NRDC trustee wrote to Joe Romm, “The climatic disruption is not a theory open to a belief system any more than the solar system is a theory, or gravity, or the oceanic tides, or evolution.” Woodwell has been studying climate change for more than 30 years and started testifying about it before Congress back in 1988.
Even if deniers feel entitled to disregard the IPCC’s entire 2,800 pages of documentation because of two errors and a few botched citations, they still must contend with voluminous evidence compiled by America’s leading research institutions.
Back in 1989, then-President George H. W. Bush decided to get to the bottom of the climate change debate. He initiated the U.S. Global Change Research Program--one of the most exhaustive undertakings in the annals of scientific inquiry. It was a 20-year study commissioned by Congress and conducted over the course four administrations--two of them Republican and two Democratic.
The agencies included NOAA, NASA, the Pentagon, the National Science Foundation, the Department of State and eight others. Their findings were released last June and here is how the report begins:
“Observations show that the warming of the climate is unequivocal.”
That’s right. The report is based on observation, not on conjecture, political views, or ideology. The report goes on to say, “The global warming over the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases.”
These are definitive conclusions from the best research agencies in the world. They reflect scientific truths, not political interest groups.
Saying the Earth is flat doesn’t make it so. Nor does ignoring climate change make it go away. Still, we haven’t heard the last of the deniers. Now that clean energy and climate legislation is moving through the Senate and has the backing of the White House, we will likely hear more talk of “hoaxes” and “cons.” The fossil fuel industry, which has the most to gain by delaying climate action, is eager to amplify these false claims.
But next time you hear them, email, call, or write to the journalist or politician and demand to know where they get their facts from. If their standards are higher than the IPCC’s then they should be happy to share their evidence.
And when you want to get the truth behind the counterfeit theories, visit this great Union of Concerned Scientists’ Fact Checker site, where real climate scientists assess questions through the lens of science not politics.
Comments are closed for this post.
Comments
Bart Laws — Mar 17 2010 02:08 PM
If you were really committed to scientific reality, and rejected counterfeit theories, you would have nothing to do with RFK Jr.
Shame on you.
Meme Mine — Mar 17 2010 03:25 PM
Voters dictate consensus, not the "scientists" of the failed, tired and worn out CO2 fear mongering after 24 years of promising climate crisis. Lazy copy and paste journalists such as this were just part of this open sewer of untreated information called the Internet. It wasn't a lie if it was posted and thank God people wised up to this fact. Where CO2 fear went wrong was when it was cornered and fell back to “crisis”, “pollution” and the phrase; “SAVE THE PLANET”. Any way you add up this barrage of dooms day mentality the voter will always equate it with “death”. Promising death by CO2 was like an all-in in a poker game and the voters are not giving climate change another 24 years to cover the bet. Will climate changers always be around? We still laugh at disco. So have fun saying "they say" all you want doomers because it was "we" voters who killed the CO2 theory, not "they" and their consensus. Why did we have thousands of more so called scientists than protestors and is your little crisis still hiding out the poles and deep in the oceans and high atop mountains? History curses you fools. Preserve, protect and respect Nature and face the future with courage, not fear of the unknown. Thanks, this was a valuable lesson we learned from the environ MENTAL ists.
Al Gore — Mar 17 2010 03:29 PM
Arrest these dishonest lab coat consultants that call themselves saintly and trusted scientists and lieing journalists for leading us to a false war like the neocons did. Arrest the scientists for denying MY KIDS THEIR FUTURES. How dare you! Journalists are trusted about as much as car salesmen and politicians and even worse; "internet scientists". Scientist=politician,scientist=politician,scientist=politician,scientist=politician
Earth Lover — Mar 17 2010 03:33 PM
Isn’t there a professional organization that can investigate the mainstream media for perpetuating this modern day witch burning of climate change? If enough of us write our capital, maybe the Bernie Madoffs of this enviro WMD false war can be dealt with harshly as they well deserve for trying to scare our children for over 20 years. This crime cannot go unpunished. Journalists, Al Gore, news editors, teachers, lab coat consultants called scientists etc. all need to perform community service work to educate the world about this crime that history will curse us all for. This climate crime has criminals and the author of this piece is an excellent example. Your kids and family will mock all of you lying and lazy journalists for this mass insanity you profited from.
CO2 = WMD — Mar 17 2010 03:37 PM
I am a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. I'm a gardener. I could get my cat a membership so don't fall for anything this Francis fear monger writes.
Thomas Dean — Mar 17 2010 03:44 PM
Hi Fran,
Anyone would be hard pressed to refute the huge amount of evidence you site here, and yet, we are getting to see that there is a limitless capacity for the deniers to keep stoking their fires. I guess it's a way for them to get attention. Perhpas they need a healthier outlet than to slow the needed changes in outlook and policy.
Meme Mine — Mar 17 2010 03:59 PM
Thomas Dean:
Voters have the REAL consensus and we the voters will write the final chapter for you and the Climate Change mistake you criminally perpetuated for almost 30 years of fear mongering predictions.
So say "they say" like a bible thumper and make a virtue out of a lack of personal evidence that is only written in your holy sites of science.
Why did you hope for this misery anyways? Does it make you feel special telling our kids they have to SAVE THE PLANET?
We curse each and every one of you fake environmentalists.
Have the courage to admit your mistake, and preserve, protect and respect Nature, not motivate with fear like a neocon.
This is our WMD of environmentalism and the more you devide us, the longer it will take to get back on the road to repsonsible environmentalism and gain back the VOTER'S respect.
Why did the globull WARmer cross the road?
She was being chased by a UFO.
How many climate scientists to change a light bulb?
None, but they DO have consensus that it WILL change!
Have a nice day and help put a stop to this insanity of CO2 that somehow both pollutes and feeds the earths plant life.
CO2 is not killing the planet. Just ask 5 billion years of planetary evolution, comet hits, ice ages, hot ages, and volcanoes. The laws of nature CANNOT BE WEAKENED.
History will not be kind to you fear mongers.
t — Mar 17 2010 04:14 PM
Dear Meme Mine,
Thanks for proving my point.
Thomas Dean — Mar 17 2010 04:18 PM
Dear Meme Mine,
Thanks for proving my point.
John Liffee — Mar 17 2010 04:32 PM
sigh... As the Romans used to say, res ipsa loquitur — Frances, your post will no doubt draw many outstanding examples of Homo ignoramus.
Who cares if the U.S. Navy is so certain that climate change is occurring and that it will be very disruptive that it is profoundly rethinking operations to adapt to climate change? Or that many Fortune 100 companies, with billions of dollars at play, are pushing for climate legislation to protect their business? "Pee-shaw," says Homo ignoramus. "We know all them egghead Dr. Evil scientists are plotting, conniving, thinking 'Why make trillions when we could make ... billions!'"
I'm tired, disheartened, really at an absolute loss as to any effective way to even begin a dialogue with Homo ignoramus. I know my sarcasm isn't remotely helpful. But I just don't know what to do about all this noise, which — as any reality-based person understands full well — we simply don't have time for. Another few years of mud-wrestling with the idiots and no meaningful action, and the consequences go from severe to truly catastrophic.
Anyway, nice post. Unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that even the most forceful, cogent argument is of no use with these people. I just pray there are enough quieter, more thoughtful people in the center to at very least get some imperfect legislation done. That'd be a starting point, at least.
Meme Mine — Mar 17 2010 05:51 PM
John Lifeless and Saint Thomas: I read "ALL" of your posts so see if your attention span is up to the challenge.
You don't have anything to base this aging 24 year old death wish on except Internet links that you choose to believe, 24 years after we were supposed to be drowning and melting by now. And spare me your "personal" definitions of the CO2 theory. We deniers know both sides at least. So therefore your blind trust and fanaticism is a religion, is it not? Your “God-climate crisis” is not a tangible reality unless you have faith in the chosen Internet sites. You make a virtue out of a total lack of evidence. How has this global climate crisis affected you lately? I know, have faith that THE END OF DAYS will arrive as your high priests of paid consulting you call scientists say. Just look at the devout faith and trust you put into people you don't even know. You make scientists out to be a new form of infallible human being. Do you realize how foolish you phony environmentalists look waiting two and a half decades to personally experience this crisis but are happy while waiting to gaze like bible thumpers at pictures of polar bears and bowing to fat politicians promising to lower the seas. Anyone with an ounce reason knows that when scientists, politicians, PR firms and hysterical media ALL agree on the same thing, be doubting, not obedient Jonestown like non-critical obedient thinkers.
Like I said, my kids, the voters, good people and the future, all curse you for this Neanderthal cave man thinking of THE END IS NEAR.Your fear is not sustainable for another 24 years unless you drop to religious status. Looks as though you have already.
Since your climate fantasy is doomed to cult status at the voting booths, can you at least be sensible enough to engage in being responsible Nature lovers, conservationists, naturalists and environmentalists like Rachel Carson wanted us to be? Human monkeys cannot change and weaken the laws of Nature after 5 billion years of comet hits, volcanoes and Ice Ages and Warm Ages. Be courageous for our children and don’t be climate cowards burdening innocent children with the responsibility of saving the planet and the disappointment of them not being able to have children on planet that you doomers are saying is toxic and doomed.
We have defeated the smoggy 70’s and Rachel Carson who wanted clean combustion of only water vapor and CO2 had brought us all sorts of environmental laws , protections and standards and you can’t even be grateful for that? We are living longer now than at any time in history as a species despite access to quality healthcare and living on a so called toxic planet and all you can do is cry?
If you climate changing doomers spent as much time experiencing, loving and engaging Nature as you do declaring it dead, weak, fragile and doomed, you would be real environmentalists. I promise, history is cursing you now and we will see you at the voting polls.
Kon Joo Lee — Mar 18 2010 12:41 AM
Climate Change Is a Scientific Reality, Not a Political Debate? I dont think climate change is a scientific reality...The climate c science may be pesudoscience. If they are real scientist, they must solve the crisis.
The current environmental technology(landfill, wastewater treatment) are make environmental crisis only.
If we discard the current technology and use my new method, the environmetal crisis will be solved.
Current
manure, humic acid(water pollutant, air pollutant, soil pollutants) + O2 (with electric energy) + bacteria=
1. GHG emitted(CO2, CH4, votalic organic matter, NO3 NH3, H2
2. sludge may digest with CH4 and CO2
3. remaing pollutant may water pollution source
4. emitted GHG may be comeback with rain
It make environmental crisis only
My new method
manure, humic acid(water pollutant, air pollutant, soil pollutants) + CO2(GHG) + algae+catalyst+ sun energy= clean air+clean water + biomass
My methods can solve climate change, waterpollution, energy etc.
Peter Kos — Mar 18 2010 01:21 AM
A FEW GENERALIZED COMMENTS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE / GLOBAL WARMING:
Skeptics are not only those who simply do not believe the junk science of man made global warming, skeptic also means the same as "show me the evidence."
I am not skeptical of AGW because I do not believe in AGW. I am skeptical because I have looked at their evidence and found it lacking totally in supporting the claims.
CO2 and water vapor interact such that they form a consistent level of heat-trapping gasses. Thus, increase CO2 all you want and no warming will occur.
If the sun brightens or our rotational axis shifts, climate will change, but CO2 does not cause changes - it simply cannot. Look up the work of Miskolczi and Zagoni for more on CO2, water vapor, and the energy balance of the atmosphere.
The fun part is that, even if CO2 could warm the climate, we could not double the CO2 in the atmosphere. As CO2 partitions 50 to 1 into the oceans, we would have to emit 50 times more CO2 than would be needed to simply double the atmospheric CO2. There is not enough available carbon fuels in the world to accomplish this. We could manage a 20% increase, if we really worked at it, but we would be working against a 5-6 year half-life for CO2 in the atmosphere, so the climate would be working against us 24/7.
If you think climate change will flood a country fast enough to actually cause people to drown, you've got other mental problems. Even at the grossly exaggerated 2.3 mm/yr the IPCC claims the seas are rising would require ocean side inhabitants to run down to the beach and intentionally inhale water in order to drown themselves.
If you consult with UN oceanographer Nils Axl-Morner, who headed the UN's panel on sea level change for 30 years, the worlds foremost expert on sea level change, you will find he states there is NO significant sea level change. Is he a "denier" for telling the truth? Or is the UN IPCC the real "denier" for telling lies about the alleged imminent doom?
When you speak to people who question the approved line on climate change you will receive serious debate. 'Deniers' don't generally question whether climate change happens. Of course it does! We can look back at history and see it happen. We had a little ice age in the 1800s, a medieval warm period, the 1930s were very warm as were the late 1990s. The 1960s were unusually cold.
'Deniers' don't deny human affect. Smog released over China and India or pre- pollution controlled 'any city' has or had a massive localized impact and today lots of built up areas with black asphalt and heat leakage causes the urban heat island effect.
With regard to anthropogenic climate change(ACC), it is the deniers who have been more honest. Its interesting that there is a distinction between the left and the right on this issue in who believes and who is a skeptic because the right (at least the free market right) has the better solutions.
Staying clear of the frothing at the mouth nutterers who believe that the world is going to end if it gets a little warmer, if global ACC is possible and is happening and has a negative effect (all questionable) then chances are it will be the poor who suffer most.
Your comment: "But there is no debate about the fact that a third of the Arctic’s perennial ice has vanished in just 30 years or that the past decade was the hottest on record.
Please explain what happened in the 1920s and how that is different than today:
1922 Flash Back | AP Story Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.
Associated Press story published in the Washington Post, November 2, 1922. [page 2]
Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
In the meantime, we should stop reproducing needlessly alarmist articles that are filled with suppositions, guesswork, and unproven linkage. In what has become less a scientific than a theological argument, anyone raising a contrary viewpoint or even a challenging question is often subjected to vicious personal criticism."
If the climate change alarmists continue preaching as they have and blaming every severe and extreme weather anomaly (polar bears will died because of climate change, migrating birds are being stressed because of climate change and so on (they will adapt), then I have a future prediction also:
Climate Change is causing Human Mutations (Headline at the New York Times - dated June 11, 2011.
Brad Fregger — Mar 18 2010 03:18 AM
It looks like Peter has shut most of you up. It's hard to challenge the facts. It is interesting, the same people who laugh at Christian conservatives for saying it's true because the Bible says so ... Are doing the same, only quoting a different set of prophets.
You know immediately when your dealing with a AGW fanatic, one who has bought into the religion hook, line, and sinker. Just look for the phrase, "A consensus of scientists say that AGW exists." this is the calling card of the ignorant or the global warming scam artists. Like Einstein said, "It doesn't take a concensus of scientists to prove me wrong, only one with the facts.
By the way, are you religious fanatics aware of the petition against the global warming fraud that was signed by over 30,000 scientists?
That's your assignment search the Internet for thus petition. Oh, I know, these weren't real scientists ... Not like the ones that the UN used. ... I'm sorry I forgot that sarcasm doesn't work on religious fanatics.
Tony Price — Mar 18 2010 05:11 AM
"The scientific consensus confirms the dangers of climate change. Yet rarely are climate deniers called on to cite fact-based, peer-reviewed evidence for their rebuttals."
They don't need to - the "climate scientists" have provided enough contrary evidence themselves. The "science" is based on computer models, not evidence:
Firstly, the IPCC climate models use a "fudge factor" to multiply the previously accepted forcing due to atmospheric CO2. Critics have searched in vain for any supporting evidence for the underlying assumption.
Secondly, the output from a number of models is averaged to give the desired warming result. That is, none of those models gives the desired result, therefore none can be right, but a selected set are averaged, and miraculously deliver the goods. That isn't science, it's a combination of wishful thinking, fudging, and serendipity.
Thirdly, we're told that "natural variation" has caused the recent plateau in global temperature. What "natural variation" is this? The "climate scientists" don't know, or they would have spelled out the factors involved. They don't actually know what drives the climate, which is why over 30 models are constantly tweaked and re-run, yet still can't predict the past, let alone the future. If the modelers really understood the climate there would be ONE climate model. There can't be because the "scientists" leave out many factors because their effects are deemed to be too small, or are not properly understood, or both.
These "climate scientists" are really "CO2 scientists", and they don't even get the effects of THAT right.
Jean Simmonsberg — Mar 18 2010 05:26 AM
There is serious talk now of arresting those responsible for this enviro WMD false war against a non-existent enemy of climate change. News editors may be the first but I wouldn't put it past an emerging generation of real radicals to arrest journalists, teachers, and academics along with the politicians in this intellectual crime against human reason.
The coming backlash is strong and if I were a doomer I'd hang low for now.
Neil Craig — Mar 18 2010 09:16 AM
This entire article is just personal rudeness. The author makes no attempt whatsoever to provide any actual evidence that catastrophic warming is happening, because it isn't. Science depends on evidence - consensus is how religions enforce their theories.
In any case the claim that there is a "scientific consensus" is wholly & completely dishonest.
I have asked journalists, politicians & alarmists now totalling in the 10s of thousands to name 2 prominent scientists, not funded by government or an alarmist lobby who have said that we are seeing a catastrophic degree of warming & none of them have yet been able to do so. I extend this same invitation here.
There is not & never was a genuine scientific consensus on this, though scientists seeking government funds have been understandably reluctant to speak. If there were anything approaching a consensus it with over 31,000 scientists having signed the Oregon petition saying it is bunk, it would be easy to find a similar number of independent scientists saying it was true, let alone 2. The whole thing depends on a very small number of people & a massive government publicity machine, both very well funded by the innocent taxpayer.
As a general rule of thumb when somebody has been caught saying something untrue once anything else they say should be treated with suspicion. If no "environmentalists" can prove their abuse of the good name of science in claiming "consensus" we should not respect their warming alarmism or indeed any of the other numerous scare stories produced over the years.
Or perhaps she will prove herself honest by naming a number of independnet scientists who support the alleged "consensus"?
Sean A — Mar 18 2010 12:42 PM
The difference between a denier and a skeptic is that a skeptic will accept something when it's been shown to be correct. A skeptic withholds judgement until the evidence is clear. A skeptic can be convinced. A denier has already made up his mind, and nothing will ever convince him to change his predetermined conclusions. A denier doesn't need empirical evidence, he has his personal beliefs, which he clings to like a religion.
Denialists refuse to accept the multiple lines of independent scientific evidence that tells us unequivically that AGW is real. Denialists make a lot of noise and cast ridiculous aspersions of politcal bias onto climate scientists. Denialists threaten and cajole that we should shut up about the scientific reality of climate change. Who are they working for? Are some of these voices the same campaigners and propoagandists who worked for years to detract and disclaim the scientific evidence that tobacco smoking causes cancer?
Just because you don't want to accept the truth doesn't make it a falsehood. The denialists don't have one scrap of scientific evidence to back up their claims.
Sean A — Mar 18 2010 12:47 PM
"In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities."
"IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements."
"The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling."
BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER:
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
Meme Mine — Mar 18 2010 04:41 PM
The more you doomers hide behind the "they say" and not come out and debate the factors of this cultural nightmare, the more your one-sided faith shines through as you fade off to cult status. Kinda like disco, only not as funny when you consider that you climate cowards tried to deny my kids their futures. How progressive.
Can one of you doomers debate the climate issue outside of "they say"?
Can one of you doomers tell us all about your personal experience and suffering from global warming and NO, bad weather doesn’t count cave man.
Can one of you doomers explain that since we obviously don’t understand natural climate (wouldn’t that be a special world?), how can you tell the difference between it and “human monkey” climate?
Can one of you doomers explain how you could be so foolish as to think of CO2 as a poison that both pollutes the helpless planet AND makes plant life possible?
Can one of you doomers explain how after 5 billion years, comet hits, ice ages, hot ages and volcanoes, we humans have changed the laws of the Cosmos?
Can one of you doomers explain how it feels to idolize a fat American politician promising to lower the seas with more taxes?
Can one of you doomers explain why there isn’t a shortage of Oxygen from all of the combustion?
Can one of you doomers explain how there are thousands of more scientists than protestors you cute little arm-chair climate scientists?
Can one of you doomers admit that voters are killing this dead horse called climate change?
Can one of you doomers not see the open debate that has all but killed the chances of voters allowing any climate change taxes and sacrifices?
Can one of you doomers not act like a religious fanatics entrusting the welfare of the planet to your saintly priests of science JUST on faith?
Can one of you doomers START realizing that scientists are just as fallible as anyone and are now acting more like politicians?
Can one of you doomers see that this death warrant you have such faith in is not sustainable for another 24 years?
Meme Mine — Mar 20 2010 09:15 AM
Climate Change WAS a liberal WMD scam. Pollution is real, global warming WAS not and WE the voters have the consensus that counts, not the dishonest "scientist" SAINTS you fools bow to, not to mention the fat American politician promising to lower the sea levels with taxes.
Canadians have renounced the IPCC and now let's arrest David Suzuki and Al Gore.
In case you are not getting the message doomers, in order for the CO2 theory to have been true, one would have to have altered the powers of the cosmos and five billion years of Nature's powers proves us deniers correct. CO2 cannot be both a life giver and taker.
Bow to your foolish "they say" all you want you miserable doomers scaring my kids because if you still think the voters will check YES to the taxes and lifestyle sacrifice, then YOU are the deniers now.
Preserve, protect and respect Nature and face energy challenges with courage, not your enviro WMD mistake. This CO2 insanity will do to the left what Bush did to the neocons. Get ahead of the doomers. Be responsible Nature lovers and stop scaring our children.
Michael Eastburn — Mar 20 2010 08:19 PM
If it's not a political debate, Frances, why are you writing an article that contains nothing but political rhetoric? Could it be because you have no sound science to back up your position, so you have to resort to the liberal playbook of lies and ad hominem attacks? Who's the "flat earther" now?
Steve Schuman — Mar 25 2010 09:09 AM
I used to worship at the church of AGW. Then when it took on the airs of Papal infallibility, I started checking into the science. I'll accept the mantle of "denier" if your willing to tell me you've got the capital T truth. Otherwise, you've got a theory and I'm a skeptic. Ask a AGW believer how earth temperatures are measured, or the different means for ascertaining sea level. All I ever get is a blank stare. I find "deniers" much more up on the science. Now, after my little diatribe, it would be nice if we could have an open debate and exchange of information, and see if our planet is in danger.