I don't think that anyone is denying that global warming is happening. However a) it's not entirely clear what the underlying cause is (i.e. how much is greenhouse gases, how much is increased solar activity etc) and b) the "solutions" being advocated by the Green lobby are inconsistent with their stated aims.
if (anti_carbon && anti_nuclear) {
return to_stone_age;
}
I agree, for the most part, with everything you way. Some of the minor stuff is wrong: Greenpeace (the biggest player on the "green activism" front) caved on the nuclear issue a few years back and accepted it as a part of a carbon-neutral energy policy. And the solar thing is mostly bunk -- you hear about it far, far more in propaganda pieces from the deniers than you do in the actual science community. Is is a plausible hypothesis? Yeah, sure. Does it look like a better bet than CO2 forcing? Hell no.
What drives me nuts, though, is the insistence on the part of the denalists here that because there is some disagreement as to numbers, the whole notion of carbon controls, consumption reductions, and the like need to be thrown out the window just because "we're not 100% sure". That's a policy issue, not a scientific one, and it's just plain insane. We're looking at a worst case (but still entirely plausible) effect of massglobalstarvation within the century, and the denialist attitude is ... wait for more data?
>We're looking at a worst case (but still entirely plausible) effect of mass global starvation within the century, and the denialist attitude is ... wait for more data?
Magical unicorns could come and eat our crops, causing mass global starvation. Why hasn't the government done anything, such as mandating unicorn shields for farmers?
My point is that the worst-case scenario is irrelevant. It matters how likely the worst-case scenario is to occur. Any discussion of the magnitude of possible damage without discussing the odds is fear-mongering at its most base. It's the same thing Bush does when he states that the terrorists could end the American way of life. Sure they could, if they blew up enough cities. But how likely is that?
if (anti_carbon && anti_nuclear) { return to_stone_age; }