Danny ChaiBelieve it or not, there are people out there that don’t believe that human activity contributes to global warming. That the earth has been warming for decades is irrefutable. The question is whether human activity is a significant contributing factor, and some people, particularly certain conservatives, argue against this.
Years ago Henry had sold me on this scam saying there’s no link between human activity and global warming. He wrote about it on his June 11, 2001 short thoughts. Turns out his position is largely based on the opinions of one Richard Lindzen, who I found out later is best described as a maverick, a vocal super-minority.
What’s the opinion of the scientific community? Science recently did a survey study on this, looking at 10 years worth of published scientific articles on global climate change. A comprehensive look by an ultrareputable publication. 75% of the papers explicitly or implicitly accepted that human activity contributes to global warming. 25% take no position either way. Not a single one argued otherwise.
You can believe that there’s a vast conspiracy theory to completely eliminate dissenting views, but that’s the response of the irrational. In any case, the weight of scientific opinion is clear – human activity contributes to global warming.
That said, I’m not sure if it’s something to overly worry about. I mean, we should do some stuff, sure. But I dunno if it’s the end of the world. Michael Crichton wrote about this in Parade this weekend, just about how alarmists are constantly pronouncing how this or that threat signals the end of the world. Decades ago the concern was the imminent global catastrophe presented by global cooling. Now it’s global warming. I’m sure they’re bad things that we should address, but the world is not going to end.