Greg Krehbiel
On global warming
by Greg Krehbiel on 20 November 2009
I posted this as a comment on another board.
In general terms, I’m skeptical of the whole man-made global warming thing.
But I’m also skeptical of the “there’s nothing here, move along” meme.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and we are pumping more and more of it into the atmosphere. That is indisputable.
The question is whether the effect is relevant, and the data is unclear on that point.
Lots and lots of things affect global temperature. It’s still quite possible that man-made CO2 is having a small warming effect that is being overshadowed by larger effects — like sun spots, ocean currents, etc.
The trouble is that we really won’t know for sure for another decade or so.
The issue should not be put as “we know CO2 is causing warming, therefore we should close our power plants,” or as “we know CO2 is not causing warming, so carry on,” but rather, “we don’t know squat, and we might be making a mess by pouring CO2 into the atmosphere, so what’s the sensible thing to do?”
IMO we should stop pouring CO2 into the atmosphere. Not because we know what it’s doing, but because we don’t know.
But putting a choke hold on industrial society because Chicken Little is screaming about sea level rise is not the solution. It seems to me that the increase in humanity’s standard of living from more widespread access to cheap power would more than compensate for whatever harm global warming might cause.
Nevertheless, we do need a smart way to transition to other energy sources. We need to do that without putting Obama in charge of the entire economy, and without breaking a system that works extremely well.
2009-11-20 » Greg Krehbiel