Michael Shermer on Global Warming: "data trumps politics"
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 06. 4.06
Michael Shermer was a well known global warming skeptic until he publicly changed his position in the June 2006 issue of Scientific American. He says: "Nevertheless, data trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic global warming. My attention was piqued on February 8 when 86 leading evangelical Christians--the last cohort I expected to get on the environmental bandwagon--issued the Evangelical Climate Initiative calling for 'national legislation requiring sufficient economy-wide reductions' in carbon emissions."
Then I attended the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, Calif., where former vice president Al Gore delivered the single finest summation of the evidence for global warming I have ever heard, based on the recent documentary film about his work in this area, An Inconvenient Truth. The striking before-and-after photographs showing the disappearance of glaciers around the world shocked me out of my doubting stance. [...]Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.
Short bio of Michael Shermer via Wikipedia:
Michael Shermer (born 1954) is a science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. Shermer also produces and co-hosts the 13-hour Fox Family television series, "Exploring the Unknown," and is a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine.
"Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, Im gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust"
I find it surprising that Shermer would change his position because he saw some glaciers melting. One wonders if he ever knew enough to be a
crdible skeptic in the first place. Theproblem with globall warming theories and models is that they're all over the place in their predictions and, what's infinitely worse, they make predictions on the basis of no change in energy technology during the coming, an idiotic assumption given the massive changes that
$3 a gallon gasoline has prompted during the past year.
I'm afraid we will repeat the
foolish measures that were taken during the 60's with auto exhaust pollution, when the technology was not up
to the task. Right now we are researchig various renewables and evaluating and implementing such things as wind, etc. It would be folly to allow ourselves to be stampeded by a rabble rousing moron like Al Gore into making idiotic rushed decisions. No one would ever claim Al Gore was a scientist, let alone a person driven by rational thought.
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editor note: Please see this.
Mr Diesel's engine is the solution. Please, Michael Marino, California Wine Tours, set an example and be a trend-setter and rework your engines with the loads of profit you are so proud of. Go to www.vegpoweredsystems.com for advise.- be the good guy, be the philanthropist instead of polluting our valleys.
Run your business off of the vats of oil from the restaurants that provide you your revenue.
It's a no brainer.
Please?
And maybe you and Michael Chiarello should get together...
It seems to me that the original causes of global warming are not our concern so much as the ongoing causes of global warming. Regardless of man's future changes, warming already begun is melting permafrost, and melting permafrost releases more carbons into the air, which creates more warming, and on and on in a vicious cycle. We could stop all manmade carbon emissions tomorrow, and global warming would go on as a natural process very difficult to stop.
I thought it would be a cold day in hell when Evangelical Christians piqued global warming awareness. Maybe it's just been too many warm days on earth.