From the JewishJournal.com, Dennis Prager writes:
In my two columns (part 1 / part 2) on why thoughtful people might be skeptical about the apocalyptic global warming/climate change scenario, I addressed the issue with a seriousness and respect that Joey Green does not exhibit in his response. He apparently felt that sarcasm and put-downs comprise an adequate response. They don’t.
Nevertheless, the issue is too important not to respond. So here are responses to selected statements by Green:
1. “Dennis explained the main reason why he and ‘many thoughtful people’ remain skeptical that human activity produced global warming. . . .”
Green puts “thoughtful people” in quotation marks, as if it is impossible for thoughtful people to be skeptical of the four claims made by global warming advocates:
a) The Earth’s temperature is rising rapidly and dangerously.
b) It is doing so because of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide.
c) The result will be a worldwide catastrophe — including unprecedented rising of the sea level leading to inundated coastal countries and cities; similarly unprecedented droughts leading to wars for water; and extraordinarily severe and numerous hurricanes making landfall.
d) Therefore industrialized nations must immediately and drastically curtail use of fossil fuels by imposing high taxes on their use and vast government spending on “green” technology. In that way, fossil fuels, the engine of mankind’s unprecedented economic prosperity and technological progress, will be abandoned. Industrialized nations must also transfer hundreds of billions, ultimately trillions, of dollars to poor nations to compensate for the alleged destruction those nations will experience due to our failure to halt warming in time.
Remember, one must fully agree with each of the first three propositions. Skepticism regarding any one of the three means that man-made global warming is not the crisis it is purported to be. And then there would be no need for the fourth proposition.
Green, like most people on the left, doesn’t believe that thoughtful people can be skeptical about any of the propositions. So, allow me to restate:
Aside from dissent by many very distinguished scientists within the small community of climate scientists and elsewhere, common sense dictates skepticism.
For one thing, how do those who are so certain about global warming and about what will occur a half century from now explain the fact that long before there were any human beings, let alone man-made carbon emissions, the Earth experienced periods of far greater warming and intense freezing? Isn’t it obvious that there have been myriad reasons for far more dramatic climate change — none of which have anything to do with humans or carbon dioxide?
Second, are we really going to transform Western economies — nearly all of which are already burdened by unsustainable debt (caused overwhelmingly by entitlements owed by the welfare state) — based almost entirely on computer models?
Third, how do we know that warming is necessarily bad? When the world or portions of it have warmed in human history, it has usually been far more a blessing than a problem.
Fourth, very few of the global warming alarmists’ immediate predictions, or even descriptions of current developments, have been true. For example, one of the most frequent warnings by Al Gore and others has been that “climate change” — what happened to “global warming,” by the way? — will result in unprecedentedly severe and devastating hurricanes. Yet, this very week, on Dec. 4, the United States passed 2,232 days without being hit by a major (Category 3) hurricane — the longest period since 1906. Have you read that in your mainstream paper? Does it mean anything that yet another alarmist prediction has proved false? According to Roger Pielke Jr., professor of environmental studies at University of Colorado, the previous record of consecutive days without a major hurricane in the United States, 1900-1906, “will be shattered, with the days between intense hurricane landfalls likely to exceed 2,500 days.”
But to Green, professor Pielke cannot be among the “thoughtful people.” For Green, no skeptic, no matter how distinguished a scientist he may be, can be thoughtful.
Green is not alone, unfortunately. This is typical of how most on the left think. They are certain that people with whom they differ — on virtually any subject — cannot be thoughtful, or intelligent, or compassionate; only those on the left possess these traits.
For the record, as I note in almost all my columns, unlike Green, I believe that there are thoughtful people on both sides of this issue.
