I am trying to avoid pulling every strand of hair off my head when I read items such as this one.
Most Americans believe global warming is a hoax.
That’s according to a Public Policy Polling study done on the issue of whether the planet is getting warmer. PPP tends to lean Democratic and is friendly, usually, to environmentalists. The poll says 58 percent of Republicans believe the warming story is a hoax, compared to 11 percent of Democrats.
What the pollsters should ask is whether people believe that human beings are responsible for global warming.
I’ve seen plenty of data that tell a grim story: Polar ice caps are returning in smaller volume every winter; average sea levels are rising around the world; worldwide temperatures in the past year increased by a full degree over the previous record; weather patterns are changing dramatically, resulting in more severe and deadlier storms.
The science that the world is warming is – in my view – beyond dispute.
The debate ought to center exclusively on its cause. Are human beings responsible? Have emissions from industrial plants, coupled with the deforestation that has depleted trees that return oxygen into the atmosphere been to blame? Have the fossil fuel emissions created massive changes in atmospheric conditions?
Or …
Is the warming trend a part of the planet’s epochal cycle? Is this warming trend the same as other such trends that changed Earth’s landscape over the course of thousands, maybe millions, of years?
Science backs both notions. Scientists are debating it at this very moment. So are politicians, each of whom has an axe to grind. They are arguing the cause of global warming, not whether it’s happening.
Me? I fear the warming trend is caused by human beings. But that’s just my opinion … for what it’s worth.
But I’m not going to debate that Planet Earth is getting warmer. It is.