Are we now going to allow paid shills for the oil industry and other special interests to once again frame the debate on the climate crisis, as the current regime believes they can do it regarding every other issue? I sure hope your answer is no.
More below
Again, representatives of the naysayers are being sent out to dispute the consensus on the climate crisis in order to frame the debate. Dr. Richard Lindzen is the latest to write a hit piece in the
Wall Street Journal to dispute the movie
An Inconvenient Truth and the scientific consensus that humans are contributing to the effects of the climate crisis. They (the naysayers) claim that in comparison to the time humans have been on Earth in comparison to how old the Earth is, that it is impossible for man to be doing any damage to it at all. How absolutely assinine to measure it only in that one context.
In earlier times the population was smaller and had less of an effect on the ecological balance of the Earth as a whole. Our population is approaching 8 plus BILLION today in an industrialized world that is spewing millions of tons of toxic gases into the atmosphere DAILY that are being trapped in the thin shell around our planet. That isn't just some intermittent volcanic eruption. Also, in ancient and pre-industrial times there were no exhaust gases from cars and factories to add to those intermittent volcanic eruptions. I can even concede that there are natural causes such as volcanic eruptions in this mix, but that in no way negates the HUMAN contribution to it that is exacerbating the effects of it, and our MORAL obligation to change OUR behavior and not to be speeding the process up as we ARE DOING.
However, those paid off by large oil companies and other interests to skew the facts to suit their own economic agendas fail to mention this in their articles. They fail to mention the corrolation between population growth to the forcing statistics regarding CO2 and other gases. They fail to mention the effects of war on the global environment. They fail to mention that other gases such as methane, carbon dioxide, etc. that are created by burning fossil fuels (which has increased since the Industrial Revolution) also contribute to exacerbation of global warming. They also fail to mention that out of 928 PEER reviewed abstracts reagarding anthropogenic climate change, that NONE of them, again, NONE of them disputes that humans are "contributing" to global warming. They use semantics to try to spin it and confuse the layperson because they know the inconvenient truth being understood could finally hurt their windfall profit margins. In my view, to simply state as a scientist that humans are not contributing to this crisis simply because the Earth is older than we have been on it with the ability to influence that without including all the other factors that come into play is LAZY science.
However, the sad thing is, that those who own the airwaves are the ones spewing this garbage to a public that will once again believe it rather than take it upon themselves to become informed citizens. And yes, seeing how Americans have reacted to the country we have now lived in for the last six years doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. Although, I really do hope An Inconvenient Truth can spark a new environmental movement in this country, and I am doing all I can to help spread that truth, because we must do it for our our future. I truly do believe that unless that happens we are destined to drive ourselves in those SUVS to our own extinction because we cannot control our greed for getting as much as we can to take it... where exactly? And we have greedy, immoral, undemocratic vipers in our government and other entities steering them who tell us that prosperity is the new American religion...THEIR prosperity, and THEIR religion.
And they will also keep trying to frame this debate instead of joining to solve this crisis unless we take definitive action to dispute their claims. Scientific organizations from the National Academy of Sciences, to the ACIA, to the IPCC, to NASA have claimed that humans are indeed contributing to this climate crisis. We now need representatives of these organizations to publicly dispute the LIES coming out of the oil lobby and their think tanks that seek to undermine the truth of what we are doing in contributing to the climate crisis that is having a grave effect upon the balance of our planet. The Bush administration has already done all it can to muzzle scientists (James Hanson of NASA as one) who dare to be forthright on this issue. It is time for FEAR to stop being the motivator behind that 10 year window closing.
It is clear their desperation is showing, and that means it is now the time for those of us in this country of all politics who see our moral obligation to this planet to frame this debate in telling them to not get in the way of those of us who will not simply accept THEIR way of living at the expense of our own. Knowledge is power, and we have it. Time to start using it. This isn't only Al Gore's fight, and it shouldn't be.