Sunday, January 4, 2009

strange bedfellows

And now to balance out the post in which I quoted a conservative issuing liberal talking points, I direct you (thanks to Glenn Reynolds) to a post on a famous liberal blog that offers up conservative talking points-- in this case, regarding climate change. Noteworthy excerpt:

You are probably wondering by now -- and if you are not, you should be -- which rises first, carbon dioxide or temperature. The answer? Temperature. In every case, the ice-core data shows that temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide by, on average, 800 years. In fact, the relationship is not "complicated."

The above is consistent with the information in "The Great Global Warming Swindle," a video that makes the same point about Al Gore's confusion of cause and effect. Personally, I think Gore's heart is in the right place: he's right to claim that humanity shouldn't make a toilet of its own environment, but he and other alarmists aren't doing a great job of promoting rational dialogue with the increasing number of global warming skeptics out there. (To be clear, the skeptics aren't arguing about whether there's a warming trend in many areas of the planet; they're arguing over how much of this change is anthropogenic. The reason this argument is important is that its outcome may affect energy policy. For example, there might not be much need to talk about (and tax) one's "carbon footprint." Surely there's room for dialogue, yes?)


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