George Will on Climate Change

In this morning's Washington Post, George Will opined on climate change. Much concern has been recently expressed regarding a potential warming, ostensibly caused by carbon emissions from humans.

This of course was not always the case. Many of the same newspapers, magazines, and scientists were saying:

- "extensive Northern hemisphere glaciation" - Science magazine, December 10, 1976
- "the world's climatologists are agreed"..."prepare for the next ice age" - Science Digest, February 1973
- "a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable"..."well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950" - New York Times, May 21, 1975

So despite there being a consensus on climate change, there really is no consensus. Regardless of this, however, several things are important to do and consider:

- there is too much pollution in this world and everybody needs to work to reduce it
- we need to find ways to utilize our planets resources in a more sustainable way
- as Michael Cricton stipulates in a recent novel, the environmental movement needs to be less dogmatic (i.e. religious) and more pragmatic

Scientists are not helping by saying that we need to dramatically change our behaviour immediately. This alarmism is creating pushback and not furthering the debate whatsoever. Let us discuss the myriad of ways to help our situation and discuss the likely pros and cons of all of this. I am aware this doesn't help with funding, but it is a logical way to remedy problems.