Here is an appetizer:
But what if AGW activists are only partially right? That is, what if something we’re doing is causing global warming, but the gases we are trying to limit are not it? Or, if the current temperature increase is part of some natural cycle, and we act, then when the climate cools on its own, cum hoc ergo propter hoc will have struck again, in reverse, and we will be left in awe at the shaman whose incantations caused the Sun to go dim at noon.
We also don’t know that warmer temperatures will be bad for humans. Warmer temperatures would seem to complicate the lives of polar bears and coral, but there is a link missing between those complications and radically changing the world economy, when it is quite possible that the warmer temperatures would improve live for humans and other life forms. It could, in fact, dramatically simplify life for humans in climates formerly too cold to inhabit; polar bears might adapt to life without ice; and coral might just grow in seas currently too cold for it.
I do not fault any who accept the opinion of experts that AGW is real. Nor do I fault the scientists, far more able than I, who judge that CO2 levels are to blame for higher temperatures. And since they accept those premises, actively trying to avert a possible disaster is understandable.
However, the links have not been properly made. In a controversy, the side seeking change from the status quo should be able to prove its case. AGW proponents need not show that the Earth is warming, which basically everyone accepts, or even that man is the cause of the warming, which many do not. But it must be shown that human action is both necessary and sufficient to fix global warming, and that the probable benefits to mankind outweigh the costs. Since what is at stake is so drastic, I demand greater proof than has been thus far offered.
See what I mean? Go on over and Read the Whoooooooole Thing.
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