Slashdot Mirror
Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House
Jeff K writes "Facts and science collide with tribal loyalties, the Washington Post reports: 'Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.'"
US Citizens follow the media. If the media doesn't report on it, the average US citizen doesn't have a clue. Getting global warming topic into class rooms and into the media is the key to getting Americans active.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
From the article: "Although Bush and his top advisers have said that Earth is warming and human activity has contributed to this, they have questioned some predictions and caution that mandatory limits on carbon dioxide could damage the nation's economy."
It doesn't sound like there's any denying going on, but rather a question regarding the impact?
You only have to read a slashdot story on Climate Change (and the amount of time posters call it "global warming" to know that the vast majority of people all over the world are not getting the full story on climate change.
I'm more worried about the current administration's failure to legislate forced change to energy (particularly oil & gas) consumption, then I am about the American public's lack of awareness of the facts.
It's a classic free rider problem and therefore a responsibility of government. It's also a worldwide free rider problem, where individual countries can choose to be a free rider.
The vast majority of people is not competent to judge what is happening. As always, people will believe the story if they believe in the authority of the messenger. In many countries in Europe, the climate change story has been adopted as fact for some time by governments, media, and meteorological services. In the US it hasn't.
The willingness to act on climate change obviously also depends on the consequences. In the Netherlands the government is already investing billions to deal with higher sea levels and more river water than was projected in the past. The last two decades have been so extremely wet that it cannot be a coincidence anymore according to the national meteorological service.
To quote something I have read in a book - "to beleive that the human race has the power or even the potential to destroy the earth is absolute arogance".
It sounds like the author of that book had an agenda. And wasn't very well informed.
Volocanoes are responsible for "global warming". If the gases that they spew are more plentiful that all that humans can put out in 100 years then they are far more responsible.
Except that volcanic eruptions over the last 100 years only account for 4% of the total greenhouse gas emissions over that same period. Which goes back to my point. You'll need to find a better book to quote.
It's rather amazing what conclusions you can reach when you decide the results before you begin your "research". Most of what the right-wing comes out with is based on this kind of "research".
It's so strange. Politically, I'm in the middle-right myself. Lately, however, I find that I have more in common with the statements coming from the left than the right-wing nutjobs, who seem to have not only inhaled, but gargled the bong water. My most sincere hope is that McCain can carry the Republican ticket, and we can wrest the Republican party back from the lunatic fringe. Wasn't the Republican party supposed to be the one defending personal liberties? So why in hell is the current president & cronies leading the charge to destroy our Constitutional freedoms?
(I know the answer: neo-cons are actually fascists at heart. It was a rhetorical question.)
Regards,
Ross