Of Senses And Consensus

Temperatures are rising, the polar ice caps are melting, the penguins and polar bears are in danger. Soon cities like NYC and Boston will partially be under water and global warming will all be our fault.

But wait, here's something interesting.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.

The last couple of years here, in the heartland, temps have been higher at this time of year. But this year we've had a couple of winter storms already and the low has fallen to as low as 3 degrees F. But when someone points this out, the subject shifts from global warming to "climate change". Never mind that the climate is a dynamic and ever-changing phenomenon, despite what man does or doesn't do.

So, I guess amid all of this confusing rhetoric, I have this figured out now. In summer, it's global warming. If it's an unusually cool summer, it's climate change. If it's winter, it's climate change. If it's an unusually warm winter, it's global warming. At least that seems to be the pattern, as I have noticed.

I call this talking in circles.

Another interesting thing to note is something I can thank PYY regular reader Amerloque for sharing in the comment section, of a previous post.

With all of this talk of consensus, we have seen that there really is none. As I have pointed out in a recent post, finding a consensus is not easy. There are those that say there is and those that say there isn't. Also, there are those that think man is causing this and those that don't. And if you thought you had that straight, now comes an article that shows there isn't even a consensus among those that think man is responsible for warming.

Bjorn Lomborg hardly calls himself the anti-Gore - he believes that global warming truly exists and that human beings are the central factor in its growth - but he does get labeled a climate-crisis denier. Considering the diction, that sounds like an attempt to place him in the category of a David Irving, who did jail time in Austria for Holocaust denial.

Lomborg, a Danish professor of statistics who describes himself as "a slight lefty in Denmark, which makes probably makes me incredibly left in the U.S.", offers a non-hysterical analysis of climate change in books (like "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming") and lectures.

Basically, without apocalyptic screech or a debunker's mocking contempt, Lomborg says the real discussion is "about how much we can do."

I have said it before and I will say it again: If we take care of the planet and cut back on energy consumption, it's a good thing. But, let's stop with the scare tactics and the politicization of the entire issue. There is nothing wrong with keeping the planet clean and certainly nothing wrong with educating people on how to do so. But let's not turn this into a socialism issue by punishing wealthy countries (while giving the "so-called" developing countries that are spilling tons of pollutants into the air, a free pass). It really makes no sense.