In a comment to a recent post about global warming, Dave Shearon asks some good questions about the subject.
Do you really think the science on global warming has firmly established that a) global warming is happening, b) it is caused by human behavior, c) it will continue absent changes in human behavior, d) the consequences of such a continuation will balance out negatively for the human race in general, and e) the net negative balance of such consequences would be worse that the consequences of the proposed changes in human behavior?
My answers: a) yes, b) yes (mostly), c) yes, d) yes, e) yes
I’m certainly not a scientist – only someone who reads a lot about science and technology. From that it’s clear to me that many, if not most, of the best researchers in the field believe there is enough evidence to make us concerned about global warming and other alterations to the environment caused by human activity.
I’m not talking about the chicken-little, disaster-movie, turn-back-the-clock-to-the-1700’s panic being pushed by some environmental groups. Instead, we need a responsible concern that leads to some real efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and to decrease our addiction to fossil fuels (most of which we don’t own anyway). In the long run (longer than the distance to the next election), both could be very good, in many ways, for both US and the rest of the world.