I have mentioned this before. I am skeptical of many of the worst gloom and doom projections of those banging the drum for global warming.
Though I haven’t seen his movie, I have seen Al Gore speak on global warming. It was at the White House and he was one of the best scientific speakers I’ve ever heard. I still wasn’t convinced.
This weekend I thought about this a little. Why am I fighting the tide? After all, like you I’ve read all the pronouncements that science has made up its collective mind. Done deal. Fait accompli.
And, from a political point of view, if you’re a global warming skeptic, aren’t you on the side of oil companies and belching smoke stacks? Isn’t it better to side with the Prius people?
Like I said, I pondered this weekend. Then, this morning, I saw a link to an article in the Denver Press.
From Dr. Bill Gray at Colorado State University:
Gray directs me to a 1975 Newsweek article that whipped up a different fear: a coming ice age.
“Climatologists,” reads the piece, “are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change. … The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.”
the article continued with more quotes and another Colorado expert, but this was the part that struck me the hardest. Again, Dr. Gray:
I understand exactly what he’s getting at. That’s why I was pondering my position this weekend. I was hearing the crowd instead seeing the science.
I know what I believe, but no one wants to be looked at with scorn.