I used to work with a man whose description of people who argued about a subject without understanding what they were saying was to call them "barking dogs". His point was simple. Two dogs can bark and bark at each other, and while they make a lot of noise, they don't convey much information. Sadly, it has seemed lately that there are more dogs barking than usual.
The single biggest kennel of barking dogs these days seem to involve the climate change crowd. There are constant discussions of the effect of rising global temperatures. There are discussions of whether or not "severe" weather is the result of global warming. There are constant discussions about whether or not it is "too late" to change the temperature trajectory. There are even arguments over whether or not the costs of stopping global warming should be shared evenly by all the countries of the world. The problem, of course, is that the basic issue which has to be resolved is whether or not changing temperatures are the result of human activity, specifically the release of carbon dioxide and other so called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Just as a point of interest, I reviewed 15 recent articles from Reuters, the AP and AFP this morning to see how much discussion includes this basic topic. I selected the articles at random after doing a Google search for "climate change". The result was unsurprising: only two articles out of 15 from these three news services mentioned the topic, but those mentions were only to state the conclusion that human activity causes global warming.
Here we are at a point where enormous changes are demanded by the global warming crowd in the way humanity produces and uses energy and there is no valid evidence that there is any need for those changes. Instead of discussing the proof (if there were any) that humanity has caused warming, however, the barking dogs spend their time yelling about other subjects. It is like arguing over where to hold a wedding after, AFTER, the couple has broken their engagement. There is no reason for the argument.
The single biggest kennel of barking dogs these days seem to involve the climate change crowd. There are constant discussions of the effect of rising global temperatures. There are discussions of whether or not "severe" weather is the result of global warming. There are constant discussions about whether or not it is "too late" to change the temperature trajectory. There are even arguments over whether or not the costs of stopping global warming should be shared evenly by all the countries of the world. The problem, of course, is that the basic issue which has to be resolved is whether or not changing temperatures are the result of human activity, specifically the release of carbon dioxide and other so called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Just as a point of interest, I reviewed 15 recent articles from Reuters, the AP and AFP this morning to see how much discussion includes this basic topic. I selected the articles at random after doing a Google search for "climate change". The result was unsurprising: only two articles out of 15 from these three news services mentioned the topic, but those mentions were only to state the conclusion that human activity causes global warming.
Here we are at a point where enormous changes are demanded by the global warming crowd in the way humanity produces and uses energy and there is no valid evidence that there is any need for those changes. Instead of discussing the proof (if there were any) that humanity has caused warming, however, the barking dogs spend their time yelling about other subjects. It is like arguing over where to hold a wedding after, AFTER, the couple has broken their engagement. There is no reason for the argument.
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