Griper Blade: On Global Warming, There's Time to Do the Right Thing

In a report that the anti-science crowd is sure to make a big deal about, the UN will dial back it's assessment of the human contribution to global warming next year. An article in the Sunday Telegraph reports, "Mankind has had less effect on global warming than previously supposed, a United Nations report on climate change will claim next year.

"The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there can be little doubt that humans are responsible for warming the planet, but the organisation has reduced its overall estimate of this effect by 25 per cent."

Of course, the climate change deniers will glom onto that first paragraph and ignore the qualifying second paragraph. It's like having the doctor come back and say the first test was wrong -- instead of having six months to live, you actually have a year -- and concluding that there's nothing wrong with you.

Of course, the reason for global warming denial is corporate greed -- dealing with it will cost money. Not dealing with it will cost more, but to a mind that looks ahead in terms of the next quarter, the future is a helluva long way away.

But even the economic reason for global warming denial is faulty. Not only will dealing with global climate change create new technologies and industries, but we've been down this road before. We dealt with ozone depletion by eliminating the use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) wherever possible. Not only didn't this kill the economy, it took place during the robust Clinton years. In fact, the economic impact of this was so insignificant that most people don't know that anything changed at all. The financial Chicken-Littles were wrong; the sky, with its growing ozone hole, didn't fall on our heads...

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