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The AGW Gauntlet Has Been Thrown Down

I have been called on to report on the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory. Trouble is, I'm not sure where to start.

Tim Minnich of Freehold, N.J., commented on a poll we posted asking for feedback on EPA Administration Jackson's recent greenhouse gas endangerment finding. He specifically asked us to report on AGW.

Reporting is asking a lot of questions of different sources. Which ones do you trust? Which ones in this case don't have a political agenda or economic interest, either way, in the regulation of greenhouse gases?

Those vocal readers who want me to do this won't trust anyone in the U.S. government because they think the Obama Administration has an agenda (don't we all have one?). What if I contacted a published author who wrote on climate change six years ago in Science magazine and he just happens to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration? The co-author of that article is not a government employee but a researcher who works for a consortium of research universities; would his perspective be any less questionable?

Please feel free to weigh in on this.

Posted by L.K. Williams on Dec 16, 2009 at 12:20 PM


Comments

Thu, Dec 17, 2009

The basic questions of the current climate change debate are sufficiently known and well structured:

1. Do we live in an era of a statistically significant, nonaccidental and noncyclical climate change?
2. If so, is it dominantly man-made?
3. If so, should such a moderate temperature increase bother us more than many other pressing problems we face and should it receive our extraordinary attention?
4. If we want to change the climate, can it be done? Are current attempts to do so the best allocation of our scarce resources?

My answer to all these questions is NO, but with a difference in emphasis. I don't aspire to measure the global temperature, nor to estimate the importance of factors which make it. This is not the area of my comparative advantages. But to argue, as it's done by many contemporary environmentalists, that these questions have already been answered with a consensual "yes" and that there is an unchallenged scientific consensus about this is unjustified. It is also morally and intellectually deceptive.

Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, Wall Street Journal, 30 May 2008

Thu, Dec 17, 2009 Straightpath1 California

At this time, I do not think one can find a "neutral" writer on climate change. Perhaps the best way is to provide viewpoints from each perspectives in count/counterpoint articles, and let the intelligent reader choose for themselves. After all, the best teachers train their students to question all facts and assumptions to test their validity.

Two voices that must be heard are Avery & Singer, who wrote the book, "Unstoppable Global Warming-Every 1500 years." Their scholarship on historical trends deserves a broad reading and critique.

The basis of the scientific method is to make a hypothesis, test the hypothesis by comparing with observed facts, and then accepting or rejecting the hypothesis. Politics and beliefs must be banned from this process. This is the basis on which we must move forward.

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