Letter: I disagree with Feb. 8 Kennebunk Post editorial (Printed Feb. 15, 2008)
Editor:
I rarely read the Kennebunk Post, but I found myself skimming through it one Friday afternoon when I was struck by the sidebar article in the Op-Ed/Editorial section on page 9, titled “Editorial page lessons.”
The article is a plea to readers to offer more “varied” letters to the editor to represent both sides of the global-warming “debate” (I, for one, was unaware there was still any debate remaining concerning the science and reality of global-warming), claiming that most of the letters the Post receives on the topic tend to be from what the paper calls “the ‘believing’ side.”
“It is important to look at both sides of the global warming issue but the trend seems to lean toward the belief that we are in such a state,” the editors write. “…..It’s important to represent the ‘non-believing’ side of the issue because both sides, really, can be difficult to understand.”
Well, no the issue is really not that difficult to understand actually.
It is now widely accepted amongst major scientific and environmental communities that the Earth is indeed experiencing global climate change, which is largely due to the burning of greenhouse gases and other human-induced activities.
While many conservative authors and pundits would rather plunge their heads in the sand and pretend the problem does not exist, and that citizens of the U.S. and the world need not take any action to halt the potentially devastating effects of global warming, one should keep in mind that many of these same people do not believe in evolution, either.
For those few still on the “non-believing side” however, here is another facet of the argument to consider: If global-warming is indeed, a massive hoax (perpetuated by say, Al Gore) then why has the Bush administration gone to such great lengths to suppress scientific evidence of the threat posed by global warming? Officials working under the Bush administration such as Philip Cooney have repeatedly edited scientific reports concerning global warming, and author Chris Mooney discusses similar global warming-suppression tactics in his book, The Republican war on science. Why have stories such as these not been reported on in the Kennebunk Post?
While I agree that letters to the editor printed in the Post should attempt to reflect a diversity of opinions, I’m afraid on the subject of global warming the science and evidence is simply too great to ignore. Perhaps the reason the Post receives more letters from the “believing” side is because its readers are well aware of this.
As I said, I rarely read the Kennebunk Post as it is, and corporate, right-wing rhetoric such as this is exactly why.
Adam Marletta
Kennebunk
I rarely read the Kennebunk Post, but I found myself skimming through it one Friday afternoon when I was struck by the sidebar article in the Op-Ed/Editorial section on page 9, titled “Editorial page lessons.”
The article is a plea to readers to offer more “varied” letters to the editor to represent both sides of the global-warming “debate” (I, for one, was unaware there was still any debate remaining concerning the science and reality of global-warming), claiming that most of the letters the Post receives on the topic tend to be from what the paper calls “the ‘believing’ side.”
“It is important to look at both sides of the global warming issue but the trend seems to lean toward the belief that we are in such a state,” the editors write. “…..It’s important to represent the ‘non-believing’ side of the issue because both sides, really, can be difficult to understand.”
Well, no the issue is really not that difficult to understand actually.
It is now widely accepted amongst major scientific and environmental communities that the Earth is indeed experiencing global climate change, which is largely due to the burning of greenhouse gases and other human-induced activities.
While many conservative authors and pundits would rather plunge their heads in the sand and pretend the problem does not exist, and that citizens of the U.S. and the world need not take any action to halt the potentially devastating effects of global warming, one should keep in mind that many of these same people do not believe in evolution, either.
For those few still on the “non-believing side” however, here is another facet of the argument to consider: If global-warming is indeed, a massive hoax (perpetuated by say, Al Gore) then why has the Bush administration gone to such great lengths to suppress scientific evidence of the threat posed by global warming? Officials working under the Bush administration such as Philip Cooney have repeatedly edited scientific reports concerning global warming, and author Chris Mooney discusses similar global warming-suppression tactics in his book, The Republican war on science. Why have stories such as these not been reported on in the Kennebunk Post?
While I agree that letters to the editor printed in the Post should attempt to reflect a diversity of opinions, I’m afraid on the subject of global warming the science and evidence is simply too great to ignore. Perhaps the reason the Post receives more letters from the “believing” side is because its readers are well aware of this.
As I said, I rarely read the Kennebunk Post as it is, and corporate, right-wing rhetoric such as this is exactly why.
Adam Marletta
Kennebunk
Adam,
With all due respect there is still a great deal of debate about Global Warming in the Scientific community, if there were not then there would be no need to fund any further research. The debate would be settled.
Primarily the underlying questions involve the degree to which CO2 really effects the macro climate. Yes, its a known fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and will result in Global Warming, but what is not known is to what degree.
It is known that the function of CO2 in the atmosphere behaves according to Beer's Law which defines a logarithmic function to the amount of IR radiation that CO2 can absorb. Its also known that water vapor already in the atmosphere has saturated much of the same IR spectrum which would be utilized by CO2.
All else being equal, CO2 by itself would contribute very little to global warming, but climate scientists have assigned numerous feed back mechanisms into computer models. These computer models vary widely, which is a statement to the high degree of uncertainty assigned to various feedback mechanisms. Basically its a case of Garbage in Garbage out, the computer models can only be as good as the understanding of the scientists creating the computer models. Since the Earth's Climate is very complex and not yet well understood, very little confidence can be invested in the out come of a computer model.
Empirical Science is quite different, because things can be measured with a high degree of precision, and the results are known. Right now there is no real world evidence that Global Warming both exists and is caused by CO2. There is no history of CO2 ever causing Global Warming in the past, while other known variables of Climate have been long known and documented, such as solar activity, ENSO and its relationship with the PDO and AMO.
Previously since this issue started to receive public attention, all of the natural variabilities in Climate have pointed to a warmer climate in the near future, but know for the first time we have an opportunity to test both the CO2 hypothesis and several natural theories about climate change, because now for the first time both camps are issuing divergent statements about Climate Change. The naturalists are saying that it is getting cooler because of the current solar minimum and the current La Nina which has caused the PDO to turn negative. Already according to Hansen's GISS, global Temperatures have fallen by 0.75 degrees since last January. Since 1997 there has been no discernible trend either positive or negative in relation to Global temperature in anyone's data, although globally CO2 levels have continued to rise.
I understand that activists do not like to go into all of the uncertainty in the Climate Change debate, instead preferring to claim that there is no debate and that everyone is agreed, which is an entirely false claim. Virtually no one is agreed except for the politicians who are always looking for a new excuse to tax us.
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