The Environment/Global Warming

Nomodiphas: What do you make of the current debate over global warming? What should our government do to prevent global warming, or at the very least mitigate its imminent disastrous effects?

Philosophos: I am very skeptical about this whole global warming ‘crisis.’

Nomodiphas: How can you say that? Isn’t the evidence indisputable that the earth is growing warmer?

Philosophos: The earth may well be growing warmer, but I doubt that humans are the cause of it and even if we are, I doubt that the effects will be as dramatic as the forecasted effects.

Nomodiphas: But, if global warming isn't such a burning issue, why are thousands of scientists so concerned about it?

Philosophos: Why are so many thousands not concerned about it?

Nomodiphas: So if global warming is not caused by humans and it is not this pending threat, what is going on?

Philosophos: I was reading something by Reid Bryson the other day. Now this man is known as the father of scientific climatology. He was a professor at a very liberal university and the head chair of a very liberal environmental group—he is far from being in the pocket of oil companies and big business as radicals claim all those who doubt global warming are. Bryson believes that global warming is ‘a bunch of hooey.’ He says he is not skeptical that global warming exists, he is just doubtful that humans are the cause of it. He says there is no question that the earth has been warming. "However, there is no credible evidence that it is due to mankind and carbon dioxide. We've been coming out of a Little Ice Age for 300 years. We have not been making very much carbon dioxide for 300 years. It's been warming up for a long time."

The Little Ice Age was driven by volcanic activity. That settled down so it is getting warmer. It is true that humans are polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but the effect is tiny. "It's like there is an elephant charging in and you worry about the fact that there is a fly sitting on its head. It's just a total misplacement of emphasis," he says of our concern on human activity. "It really isn't science because there's no really good scientific evidence." Bryson argues that just because almost all of the scientific community believes in man-made global warming proves absolutely nothing. "Consensus doesn't prove anything, in science or anywhere else, except in a democracy, maybe."

So why do we constantly hear talk of global warming? "There is a lot of money to be made in this," Bryson claims. "If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of graduate students and a lot of grants. You can't get grants unless you say, 'Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.'" As far as how reporters get their facts, often times they will call the meteorology building seeking the opinion of a scientist and some beginning graduate student will pick up the phone and say he or she is a meteorologist, Bryson explains. "And that goes in the paper as 'scientists say.'" The word of this young graduate student then trumps the views of someone like Bryson, who has been working in the field for more than 50 years.

In conclusions Bryson remarks that "there is very little truth to what is being said and an awful lot of religion. It's almost a religion. Where you have to believe in anthropogenic (or man-made) global warming or else you are nuts." The only evidence of man-made warming in our state is around cities for the last 100 years. There has been slight change around cities, but that was true and detectable in the 1930’s. Other areas show no warming. Cities are hotter not because of carbon dioxide, but because of concentrated cars, pavement, and home heating.

As far as I am concerned the jury is still out on global warming. Caribou live near the artic circle. They flourish in the hardest, coldest climates. Yet Julius Caesar wrote that France was filled with Caribou while he was campaigning there. What does that mean? The climate is always changing! It does so naturally. Is it warming now? Maybe. Do we have anything to do with it? Probably not, but even if we do, most agree there is little we can do to change things. And even if we could change things, we shouldn’t.

All life contains both risk and cost. Do you know how many people die every year in car accidents? Millions, it is the most common form of death. We could prevent all these deaths by instituting a world wide two mile an hour speed limit. But you don’t hear anyone calling for that. Why not? Because the cost in time and economic hurt brought about by this change would lead to far more death and harm than the current situation. The same is true for global warming. Radicals argue that since global warming may bring death there is a moral imperative to do all we can to stop it. But radically limiting development would be an economic catastrophe and would lead to far greater harm than doing nothing at all.

Nomodiphas: That was really interesting what you said about professor Bryson. Profit mixed with science and education; the wrong end for a field once again corrupts a field. I can understand that. I can see how you need to have some huge problem in order to attain research grants to solve that problem.

As for the scientific claims, I am no scientist and I have not seen the data myself, however I do doubt that things are as cut and dried as global warming activists propone them to be. Our whole media seems to revolve around fear inducement. You need to be extreme in order to get people’s attention and sell your news. ‘The climate is naturally changing and humans may have to make minor adjustments to their lives’ does not sell papers like a headline that reads: ‘millions will die, global warming catastrophe is imminent.’

I think there is an alarming lack of research occurring here. Reporters go into something with a story and mind, needing only to find someone to back up the claim. Those that prophesy doom and gloom get attention. In order to get attention and grant money one needs to continue with this game. When one wants to hear something many will be quick to say it so long as it brings them attention and money.

Regarding the environment in general, should there be any environmental laws?

Philosophos: Before I answer that I would like to mention that I do think people should be good stewards of resources. It is wise not to over-fish, over-graze, pollute, etc. I think however, most of these choices are to be made at the individual level. The reason the Bible does not allow the government to punish an individual for unwise stewardship, I believe, is primarily because there are natural consequences. If you over-fish your pond or over-graze your field, it will lose value and you will only hurt yourself. The problem is with the commons. There the tendency is to take what one can get. There is no incentive to be a good steward for someone else may take it all before you can use it or pass it on. That is why the state should encourage more property to be privately owned—private owners tend to be the best stewards of land.

However not all land can be privately owned and the state can make laws to ensure that people respect these common areas. But as far as private land goes, we have a right to use our land as we wish so long as it does not harm others (for example, I can’t build a factory that puts chemicals in a stream that kill my neighbor’s cows or crops). The right to life limits the right to property. Pollution limiting laws are in this way justified. As for recycling and things of that nature, they are choices left to the individual. The government may not interfere and tell people how they are to use or dispose of their property.

I want to switch gears here and talk about the main reason I am skeptical of global warming. The president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus recently said this about global warming: "What is at risk is not the climate but freedom. I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning."

Nomodiphas: Are you implying that you think there are people who are promulgating fraudulent claims and wrongfully stoking fear over a natural process in order to take or gain power?

Philosophos: I am not implying it; I am accusing them of it. What is tyranny?

Nomodiphas: It is the wrongful rule of one.

Philosophos: And how does this come about?

Nomodiphas: It comes about when there is a crisis and we have a need for a decisive individual to rule and lead us out of the crisis. We disregard our laws and procedures because the crisis necessitates fast action.

Philosophos: What is one to do if they want to circumvent the laws and rule over the people as a tyrant and there is no crisis?

Nomodiphas: I don’t know.

Philosophos: They create a crisis to justify their take over. I believe that this is at the heart of the global warming ‘crisis.’ It is an invented crisis which has the sole aim of taking liberty from the people. You can see that now already. Those that want more evidence of global warming are put on par with those who deny the Holocaust. There are calls to make sacrifices and create limits on consumption of use, but allowances for those that have the money to buy ‘carbon credits.’ Sacrifices have to be made, but not by those in power, they are far too important for that! “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than the others.” If Al Gore is so worried about global warming why doesn’t he move out of his 10,000 square foot house and start riding a bus instead of flying around in his private jet? That is unthinkable! Those are the things the common man it told to do, but Al Gore is far too important to be bound by those rules. After all, didn’t Napoleon teach us that great men are not subject to the restrictions of the masses?