believes there is a disagreement, a lack of a consensus amongst scientists about global warming and the role of man in it.
Webster's dictionary defines consensus as:
1 a: general agreement:
b: the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned
2: group solidarity in sentiment and belief
Figuring out when the world's scientists have reached a consensus is not an easy thing to do. Scientists fool with complicated stuff and there are always little details to nit-pick about. They are also fond of disagreeing with each other; sometimes it seems just for the hell of it
In some regards not agreeing with the common view is almost what science is all about.
Science has reached a consensus on man's effect on global warming and a very sharp Ph.D. geologist from Stanford University has figured out how to figure that out.
I know my last sentence was redundant and I promise to try harder to only be dundant in the future. I couldn't help myself.
Dr Naomi Oreskes punched in the words into her computer "global climate change" as a search question into the Institute for Scientific Information database. She and her research assistants then examined the abstracts (introductions and summaries) of 928 scientific papers which popped out.
75% of the papers said the earth was heating up and man was at least partly responsible. The other 25% just discussed aspects of the heating and didn't mention man's influence one way or the other.
No scientific papers suggested that the warming wasn't occurring or was due to strictly to "natural cycles”.
It seems we got us a consensus. 928 to 0.
Dr Oreskes started her career in seismology, which is a branch of geology where we listen to the earth to see what it’s all about, by studying how it shakes.
Things were shaking in Washington last week when 6 former heads of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) five of whom served under Republican administrations sharply criticized the Bush administration and Congress for not responding to the crisis of global warming.
“We need leadership, and I don’t think we’re getting it .. To sit back and just push it away and say we’ll deal with it sometime down the road is dishonest to the people and self-destructive.” Russell Train EPA Administrator (boss) under Presidents Nixon and Ford.
They were at a symposium celebrating the 35th anniversary of the EPA.
At one point they were asked to raise their hands as to whether they believe global warming is a real problem, and then asked if humans bear significant blame. All six hands went up both times. Curiously enough one of the hands that went up belonged to Stephen Johnson who is the current head of the EPA. I suspect all kinds of things have been shaking in his world ever since his hand went up.
Its a shame they didn’t have all the former heads of the EPA there including all the democrats, but with a score of 6-0 it looks like we got us another consensus.
Its all very good to think and say that our politicians are all corrupt and self-serving but it's not true.
One of the main functions of our representatives in Washington is to represent the views of their constituents. That's us.
In the case of climate change/global warming they've been doing a good job of representing our views and desires Any plan to confront this problem/ crisis is going to call upon us all to sacrifice and today's America is not into sacrificing.
A parallel example is the war in Iraq. Even when the war was much more popular than it is now, young people were not lining up to enlist, and older people were not advising or pressuring their sons and daughters to go.
America has changed fundamentally in our willingness to sacrifice.
I think a great deal has to do with TV. Try some channel surfing and see how much of if any, is promoting sacrifice for the greater good, or the long run.
They are mostly promoting the idea that if you have more stuff, and bigger stuff, you will be happy. Great abs and no dandruff are important too.
In order to save what we can of nature and humanity we're going to have to learn to want less stuff and smaller stuff. And take joy in that. Take joy because we’re doing the right thing, and the future, whether we’re still here or not, is important.
We need to reach some kind of consensus on that, and then get shaking.
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