I’ve been mulling the idea of writing a piece about my skepticism over global warming, but now it looks like I don’t really have to; my friend and fellow Pyr SF novelist Joel Shepherd has written it for me. That’s the great thing about the blogosphere; it saves me the trouble of trying to come up with all these arguments on my own and allows me to just link to someone smarter who’s already done the work.
The pertinent points in Joel’s rather brief piece are these:
- There’s a big difference between a global warming skeptic and a global warming denier
- Many environmentalists are trying to stifle argument about global warming by stating that skepticism is dangerous
- Skepticism is a much more valuable tool in uncovering truth than belief
- The truth about global warming might be inconvenient, but it’s by no means obvious and almost certainly not settled
In the comments, Joel further points out:
- Global warming skeptics are in the unenviable position of trying to prove a negative, which is pretty much impossible
- There are a gajillion factlets out there that don’t quite square up with the theory that human beings are the sole (or overwhelming) cause of climate change
- Even if the climate is changing, most of the ideas for combating it (e.g. driving Toyotas, turning down your AC, signing on to Kyoto) are pretty lame and ineffectual
For another lucid and brief article along the same lines, see this Straight Dope column on global warming from last April. And also read SF author Charles Stross’ take on “Why I Am [Not] an Environmentalist.”
My personal belief about what’s happening with the planet? If I had to put money on it, I’d say that a) the Earth is warming, perhaps dangerously so; b) we contribute to the warming effect, but on a much smaller scale than the alarmists are stating; and c) there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it anyway, especially not by limiting consumption, because developing nations in Asia will soon swamp any efforts we make at conservation with their own increasing consumption.
That doesn’t mean I think we should sit around and do nothing. But I think clearly we need more skepticism in the debate and more scientific research. Research into whether the climate is changing and how much and why; but also research into what homo sapiens can do to survive this whole mess if the worst turns out to be true and conservation efforts prove useless. If Al Gore’s right about what’s happening, our best bet might be to invest in some hard-core survivalism science.
Here’s something else that’s going to sound incredibly caustic but I need to get off my chest anyway: I don’t really give a shit about the Earth. I only care about whether we can continue to live on it. If we could accomplish that by setting up big climate-controlled science fiction domes and letting the rest of the globe rot, on an emotional level I’d be just fine with that. (On a more practical level, of course, I’m guessing that the rainforests and the wildlife and the amoebuses and all the rest make it a lot easier for us to live here, and there’s really no point trying to invent a livable human environment from scratch when we have one already.)
Can you tell I’m cranky today?
(Oh, hey, and before I forget, Joel’s got a new book out — in the States at least — called Breakaway, the sequel to Crossover. Go buy it.)