I came across this piece in my local paper regarding climate change. The six questions that Lenfestey proposes we ask political candidates could really be asked of anyone. So I've decided to put these to my readers and see what kind of responses I get.
1. Do you understand the science of climate change?
Obviously, some people don't.
2. Are you aware that President George W. Bush's administration found the evidence for climate change convincing? Have you read his report, "Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States," published in 2008?
Actually, I haven't. Has anyone out there read it?
3. Are you aware that in May 2011, the nation's most esteemed scientific body, the National Research Council, reaffirmed the international scientific consensus on the human causes of climate change and made clear that sustained effort must begin immediately to deal with those adverse consequences? That the question of climate change is "settled science," and the impacts are already evident around us?
Well, this has got to be the toughest nut to swallow for the deniers. What exactly do you say to these findings?
4. If you do not accept the conclusions of these careful scientific assessments, what scientists do you listen to? What reports have they issued that you find more convincing? Where do you get the information that you find more persuasive?
Yes, which ones? No right wing blogs. No oil company shills. Let's see the reputable scientists who have examined the data and reached a different conclusion.
5. Let me put this another way. Texas is on fire. Pennsylvania faces record floods. Joplin, Mo., is reeling from epic tornados. Shorelines are eroding in the Carolinas. None of these events can be directly blamed on climate change, but all are predicted by known climate-change trends.
Such events will only worsen if the climate continues to warm, as it will under business-as-usual scenarios. Do you support a business-as-usual model or do you have a plan to stem the trend toward a hotter, more volatile planet?
Well, I can answer that for those on the right. Do nothing. It's the same solution they have for health care.
6. Candidates Perry and Bachmann: Both of you have said the Environmental Protection Agency is a major problem in America, and you would seek to eliminate it if elected, particularly its mandate, affirmed by the Supreme Court, to regulate carbon emissions.
How then would you address the flaw in private markets that attaches no economic value to waste that falls as a burden on the general population -- for example, sewers that flow into waters that cross state lines, or carbon wastes that warm the atmosphere around the world? Without the EPA, how would you propose to address pollutants that cross state and international boundaries?
I'm very interested in the answers to this last one...if there are any. Honestly, I don't think there are because the right doesn't think this is a problem. Like many problems that require federal government solutions, they just turn away and pretend it doesn't exist and completely rip the left for trying to do anything.
They want them to fail because having no solution is a failure from the very beginning. And we can't let them "win" now, can we?
5 comments:
None of these events can be directly blamed on climate change, but all are predicted by known climate-change trends.
Bullshit. None of those things are "climate" driven. This is evidence that the author of these six questions did not make past his first question.
At this point, I'm wondering what evidence you think contradicts the NRC.
and made clear that sustained effort must begin immediately to deal with those adverse consequences
You mean efforts like this? Who is opposing that I ask you? Who is opposing an increase in knowledge about how the climate behaves?
I've told you before, the climate has always been changing. It is the climate alarmists (i.e. Henny Pennies) that insist the climate must be kept in some particular state. We need to adapt - not insist that the world retreat to a particular point in the past (for any reason).
Juris nailed it. And I brought it up before and it was left unanswered. All this 'Settled' science has just been unsettled a lot in the past year with additional studies. But even more, nobody has quantified anything about man's contribution nor has anyone anywhere determined what the 'optimal' temp is. The ONLY settled science is that it is changing. So what? It is a dynamic planet and it always changes even without man. The ENTIRE argument against this knee-jerk, 'hey the science is settled' bullcrap you and others keep spewing is this:
1. It isn't 'settled'
2. It isn't quantified
3. It isn't defined
4. There isn't a known fix
5. It may not be even possible for man to affect climate
Now if you were talking pollution (not CO2), I think everyone could agree and then the argument would be about how far you should go. Raising an alarm about this fine but requiring fixes with almost nothing certain is absurd and irresponsible. That is the argument.
All this 'Settled' science has just been unsettled a lot in the past year with additional studies.
Where? And are these studies supported by the NRC as well?
As to your five points, I guess I'm wondering what's your basis for thinking the NRC and the multitude of other groups that say this is settled science are wrong. Someone put up a link recently that said it was cosmic rays but the people who did that research have since come forward and said that their findings were exaggerated by the skeptics.
In my view, this is just another example of you not wanting to admit that you are wrong and have "lost" the argument. We are already shifting to sustainable development in the free market anyway.
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