Conservatives, Environmentalism, & Global Warming

From the beginning conservatives have been largely skeptical of the environmental movement. That skepticism has only increased as environmentalists more and more resemble socialists. Folks wonder if the environmentalists believe in their stated cause at all or if it is simply a front for their true cause.

Then along comes the idea that humans are causing global warming. The alleged cause: carbon dioxide, the natural result of just about every form of energy production we have (not to mention breathing). The prescribed cure: drastic cuts in the amount of CO2 produced, no matter the costs to industrialized nations. The penance: huge transfer payments to third-world countries.

Now, let's imagine that the data used to claim the earth is warming becomes suspect. Perhaps it turns out that numbers have been "adjusted" and the original data lost. Or that a semi-organized effort has been made to shut naysayers out of the debate.

So when a prominent global warming researcher admits the world may have been "warmer in medieval times than now" and "for the past 15 years there has been no 'statistically significant' warming," you might expect it to be big news.

Yeah, if you'd been living in a cave. Anything that runs contrary to the accepted global warming dogma is ignored by the majority of the media and by policy makers. Why give up a perfectly good crisis just because of data?

"Climate Change"

Today is Blog Action Day 2009. To date, I've participated in Blog Action Day, but this year I can't.

The hysteria over global warming "climate change" is ridiculous.

Our planet might be getting warmer. Human behavior might be influencing that warming. Destroying our economy with Kyoto might reduce far future warming 1%.

But since the warming trend appears to have stopped, since Mars is also warming, and since reduction in fossil fuel use by the West will only make them cheaper and easier to get for India and China, perhaps there are other issues we should focus on.

There are people in this world today without clean water, lacking access to simple medical treatments, and living in constant fear of their neighbors' barbarism.

We can actually do something about these problems! So should we spend billions on fighting global warming that may not be real, may not be a real problem, and may not be fixable, or should we spend the billions on clean water, stopping malaria, and helping children live to adulthood?

I vote for the latter.

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