On climate change, let cool heads prevail
By Eugene Robinson
WashPost
Friday, July 9, 2010
It's odd how little we've heard lately from the skeptics who deny that climate change is real. What's the matter, people? Heat stroke?
The Venus-like heat that much of the country has been suffering this summer is almost enough to make anybody a believer in global warming. Almost, but not quite: Honesty compels me to acknowledge that a few weeks of record-setting temperatures do not constitute proof of anything. Climate scientists have to analyze data covering decades and centuries to discern what's really going on.
Of course, the unusually heavy snowstorms that buried Washington and other East Coast cities this past winter didn't prove anything, either. But that didn't deter the climate skeptics from gloating. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and his family went so far as to build an igloo on Capitol Hill and label it "Al Gore's New Home." Care to apologize to the Nobel laureate, senator?
No, that would be too much to hope for. A more realistic wish is that the punishing heat wave will convince those tempted to buy the skeptics' know-nothing line -- Global warming is a crock! The tree-hugging socialists are making it up! It's a conspiracy! -- to consider the scientific evidence with an open mind.
(More here.)
WashPost
Friday, July 9, 2010
It's odd how little we've heard lately from the skeptics who deny that climate change is real. What's the matter, people? Heat stroke?
The Venus-like heat that much of the country has been suffering this summer is almost enough to make anybody a believer in global warming. Almost, but not quite: Honesty compels me to acknowledge that a few weeks of record-setting temperatures do not constitute proof of anything. Climate scientists have to analyze data covering decades and centuries to discern what's really going on.
Of course, the unusually heavy snowstorms that buried Washington and other East Coast cities this past winter didn't prove anything, either. But that didn't deter the climate skeptics from gloating. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and his family went so far as to build an igloo on Capitol Hill and label it "Al Gore's New Home." Care to apologize to the Nobel laureate, senator?
No, that would be too much to hope for. A more realistic wish is that the punishing heat wave will convince those tempted to buy the skeptics' know-nothing line -- Global warming is a crock! The tree-hugging socialists are making it up! It's a conspiracy! -- to consider the scientific evidence with an open mind.
(More here.)
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