2007-02-02

U-Penn Enviornmental Prof Debunks Global Warming Hysteria

This prof is a liberal democrat who voted for Gore. The article doesn't mention his funding sources, but all working scientists get funded by somebody, and all funders tend to favor certain theories. With funders on both sides of this issue, one side has to be right, and the other wrong. Naturally the petro companies don't want the burning of fossil fuels to be ruining the world; but that doesn't automatically mean that the desires of the petro companies don't coincide with scientific realities. Maybe the people who hate corporate profits and any development of natural areas are correct; maybe so are their allies in university faculties and federal research grant-conferring outfits like the NIH who seek to reserve funding for scientists confirming global warming.

Let's please limit our debate to facts and logic, not to tracing funding sources, since each side gets funding from vested interests.

From the article: ===============================================

“The glossy production is replete with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, and appeals to public fear as shamelessly as any other political statement that hopes to unite the public behind a particular ideology.” This from a guy who voted for Gore in 2000 and says he’d probably vote for him again. "If you suggest that we’re not going to hell in a handbasket because the rate of global warming is low compared to so many other environmental issues that we’re enduring, then you’re accused of being in the employ of the oil companies and you’re labeled a Republican.”

...Oprah says she had no idea all these terrible things were happening until she interviewed the noted authority Leonardo DiCaprio. "There are 2.4 billion people in India and China who have launched a campaign that will increase their energy consumption by a factor of 10. No matter what we do. If we somehow cut our CO2 emissions in half, you wouldn’t be able to measure the difference because of the role played by India and China. It’s over. If CO2 is the problem, we’ve already lost.”

"First of all, the science isn’t good. Second, there are all these other interpretations for what we see. Third, it doesn’t make any difference, and fourth, it’s distracting us from environmental problems that really matter.” Among those, Gieg says, are the millions of people a year who die from smoking and two million people a year who die because they don’t have access to clean water. He likes to point out that there was a time when people like him were called natural philosophers, and he wouldn’t mind a return to the days when scientists spent more time asking questions and less time testifying before committees.

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