Global Warming Skeptics

In the current issue of Forbes, Steve Forbes has an excellent editorial about global warming titled "Fantasy Fears". His editorial recites many facts from "Diagnosing Al Gore: Truth in the Balance", which I haven't read in it's entirety but is also interesting.

The premise behind both is that global warming concern has elevated to hysteria and everyone is jumping on board and creating a new reality based on "scientific facts". Diagnosing Al Gore, written by Mary Ellen Tiffany Gelder, is an exercise in dissecting claims made in the film and discrediting them. This was bound to happen and, from what I've read, the article does a decent job and is not a scientific research paper. I know that if you look hard enough you will find information to support any argument so I'm not going to debate the alternative facts in the film or Gelder's article.

What I do have a problem with, and what Forbes and Gelder highlight, is the panic to be on the "right" side of the issue. This has created a lemming effect where everybody follows without asking any questions. Forbes also raises the point about calling people "deniers" who don't believe in global warming and likening them to Nazi Holocaust deniers. This does not serve the global warming cause well at all. Democracy allows people to share ideas and debate them publicly. We choose this form of social organization because it is better than one version of everything coming from the top down. By limiting the debate and proclaiming one truth we overlook the possibility of being wrong or finding other solutions.

While the global warming skeptics tend to be from more conservative political backgrounds and are more business/economic oriented they do agree with one position. Business will be helped by efficiency gains and waste reduction. If these people can get on board with supporting new technologies and methods that reduce waste, promote efficiency and create new economic models then everyone will be happy with the results. However, by proclaiming that the "inconvenient truth" is the only truth then the debate has polarized and any action is now paralyzed.