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So much has been said about the pros and cons of Global Warming that we find watching the spectacle to resemble our attitude towards professional sports.
Not being much of a sports fan, we find little enjoyment in watching the games themselves. What we find fascinating, however, is watching the behavior of sports fans. They engage in rituals, accuse rivals of every sin imaginable, buy totemic objects at inflated prices, and carry on in ways that would fascinate any anthropologist.
The Global Warming controversy has become fascinating in the same way. As with sports, nobody can tell what will really happen in the future, but watching fans argue about the future has become far more interesting than the Global Warming question itself.
The blogosphere has had a number of heated discussions about human-caused climate change, known as Anthropogenic Global Warming or AGW in many posts. The true believers are angry that the deniers won't accept the word of so many climate scientists. They discard the views of denying Nobel-prize wining physicists, arguing that these these scientists, eminent as they may be, aren't climate specialists to their satisfaction.
There is so much back and forth that it can become difficult to keep track of all the payers and understand the range of opinions they represent. Forbes published a summary of the various points of view on a controversial new energy source, but their description applies just as well to any contentions issue such as Obama's birth certificate, 9-11, or even AGW. If you're going to take part in the controversy, it helps to know who the players are.
Many peer-reviewed papers have been published about climate change, global warming, and the coming catastrophe. These efforts have done little to convince the skeptics but have driven believers into a frenzy of support. Believers accuse skeptics of wanting to trash the planet or of blindly following cover-ups by energy companies; skeptics accuse believers of wanting to trash everyone's way of life and freedoms.
Skeptics believe that anyone being funded by the government is being paid to say that global warming is a coming catastrophe which must be mitigated by skyrocketing energy costs so we can all freeze in the dark. They don't trust government with any more power than it already has.
Believers argue that anyone funded by an energy company is paid to say global warming isn't happening. They argue that only a benign, all-knowing government can save us from the greed of fossil fuel sellers and users.
Skpetics accuse believers of belonging to a cult-like group which trashes dissenters and tries to keep papers which don't support the AGW mantra from being published at all. They don't accept the believers' contention that they're evil; they seem themselves as deferring judgment until we know more about the issue.
We represent a totally different school of thought - we believe that it doesn't matter a whit whether global warming is real. We're also convinced that if it is real, it doesn't matter whether it's caused by human activity or not.
People can't even agree whether the earth is getting warmer or not - there has been much back-and-forth about temperature measurements and much controversy about which year was the hottest on record.
Forbes reports a major new look at all the temperature data. The study tried to correct for measurement stations which have changed due to more asphalt near them and other environmental factors. They study concluded that the earth's temperature is rising, albeit not by much.
Never mind all that because it doesn't matter what's going on with climate. Here's a series of bullet points you can use to see how well the true believers in your circle can handle opposition:
“We’re on the bottom edge of the levels that were thought to have existed in the Cretaceous and rapidly heading toward the estimated values during the greenhouse times, including the Late Cretaceous.” [emphasis added]
We've had higher CO2 levels before and life did just fine; what's different this time?
Assuming that global warming is actually happening and assuming that human activity is causing it, do we trust any government with billions of dollars of our money to do something about it? The US Department of Energy has spent billions since Pres. Carter funded them to find new energy sources to reduce oil imports. What have they achieved? Zilch. Nada. Nothing useful at all.
The government just dumped a half-billion on a well-connected solar energy company. GE is applying for government subsidies for solar panel manufacturing; yet more corporate welfare. How much money do we think government should spend addressing Global Warming / Climate Change, even if it were real, given their track record?
Not one thin dime.