Evidence for global warming mounts every day. Just
last week scientists found out that previous measurements in the upper atmosphere were faulty. (Those measurements showed too little warming up there, hence problematic for the global warming theory.) Climate change in the Artic is obvious, US senators
Clinton, McCain, Graham say.
But still, skeptics cannot be "swayed" a bit. (Certainly, energy industry interests remain the same.) I am not sure how "balanced" the media keeps going. But today I typed "global warming" search at news.google.com, and half of the first page stories were still "anti-warming"... Did skeptics come up with something new?! Here are their stories, see yourself:
Foxnews junk science,
Common sense "prevails",
No warming, just cycles,
Shameless reason online,
Warming is too good for farmers,
Stopping warming is very very costly...
As Krugman recently
noticed, skeptics' life is too easy. All they have to do is to sow confusion, cling on any possible indefiniteness. For example, the Fox-beloved "experts" hardly produce any data themselves, they just exercise in interpreting other's work. It certainly seems that only one side of the debate tries to make things clearer. It's high time to ask
equal standards from both sides.
For instance, computer models of climatologists are criticized. They are indeed just approximations, best possible with current technology. But why we only have models which predict worrisome future? What does it mean that we do not have reasonable optimistic "approximations"? Incomplete results and models give incomplete results, but eventual corrections can go equally well to the more cheering or to the worse side.
For example, more frequent and more powerful hurricanes were not predicted beforehand. Yet now we can suspect strong links between warmer tropical oceans and stronger hurricanes. The data is still incomplete, but asking "Is there surely no connection between warmer climate and stronger hurricanes? Can the correlation of higher temperatures and more frequent tropical storms be really accidental?" is just as reasonable and responsible as asking for complete proof of the connection before doing anything.
Did you compare how specific are predicted climate problems and expected economy dire straits under "Kyoto regime"? Actually, I hardly notice any specific predictions how exactly the economy will be ruined by anti-warming measures. Impossibly hard strains on economy are cited as obvious, but the matters are clearly not so straightforward. Does anyone care about the costs of ignoring the climate problem? Reasonable people should hardly expect that exploitation of nature resources can last for long. Bushonomics of "no brainer" stimulation of oil-addiction and disregard of alternative energy possibilities should be reversed sooner rather than later. The global economy is becoming different any way: either we let climate and resources problems escalate, or we take measures to counter them. As we know, free market economy works best when there are reasonable restraints to overcome, not when a government take care of directing each dollar to "optimal" contractor.
P.S. Just for fun, here is an example of more responsible climate skepticism ;-)