Some times you need to go to Denmark to find some common sense. Flemming Rose, editor for the biggest Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten and Bjorn Lomborg, professor at the Copenhagen Business School, contributed a commentary in today's Wall Street Journal titled Will Al Gore Melt?. In this well written piece they make three points:
1) Al Gore backed out of an interview with the paper at the last minute despite the paper acceding to his conditions showing us that Mr. Gore is unable to defend his positions and answer critics:
... he [Mr. Gore's agent] came back to tell us that Bjorn Lomborg should be excluded from the interview because he's been very critical of Mr. Gore's message about global warming and has questioned Mr. Gore's evenhandedness.
2) The economic cost of countering global warming is devastating with the world's poor bearing the brunt:
... the U.N. Climate Panel suggests that if we follow Al Gore's path down toward an environmentally obsessed society, it will have big consequences for the world, not least its poor. In the year 2100, Mr. Gore will have left the average person 30% poorer, and thus less able to handle many of the problems we will face, climate change or no climate change.
3) The claims in "An Inconvenient Truth" are at the very least an exaggeration.
In his movie he shows scary sequences of 20-feet flooding Florida, San Francisco, New York, Holland, Calcutta, Beijing and Shanghai. But were realistic levels not dramatic enough? The U.N. climate panel expects only a foot of sea-level rise over this century. Moreover, sea levels actually climbed that much over the past 150 years. Does Mr. Gore find it balanced to exaggerate the best scientific knowledge available by a factor of 20?
Although they offer several reasoned examples of some rather inconvenient facts, a publication which is friendly to Al Gore has the same criticisms of these exaggerations aptly titled An Inconvenient Truth, Gore as climate exaggerator as well as exposing the heavy handed tactics more common in politics than science:
In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore makes a big deal about how his Harvard professor, oceanographer Roger Revelle, influenced his views about the dangers of global warming. However, Professor Revelle co-authored an article in the house journal of the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC in 1991 which concluded, "The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time." Professor Revelle died shortly after the article appeared. This conclusion apparently dismayed Gore whose staff worked behind the scenes to spread the rumor that Revelle's co-authors had taken advantage of a senile old man and that Revelle's name should be taken off the article. This sorry episode ended with a lawsuit in which another Harvard professor who had conferred with Gore's staff formally apologized for making his insinuations.
Reason Magazine also continues with:
What does Gore recommend? He focuses on policies the cut emissions, but largely ignores those that would enhance our ability to adapt to future temperature changes. So An Inconvenient Truth ends with suggestions for how viewers can personally cut back on their carbon emissions—install compact fluorescent light bulbs...
This reminds me of an issue I have brought up with those enamored of the 'global warming crisis' which is how does replacing incandescent lamps with fluorescent lamp actually help? After the movie I mentioned in a previous post I brought this same point up to my Rabbi who has also been unable to get an answer from those promoting the film and advocating such action. My explanation (please let me know if I am missing something here) is that reducing the power consumption of a light bulb will have no impact upon CO2 gas emissions (certainly in Michigan) where like most of the nation a base level of electricity is generated regardless of demand. The excess electricity that is not used is not stored - it simply is wasted - changing light bulbs will not change that formula. Even more specifically peak electricity is typically required during the middle of the day when most light bulbs aren't even being used - in my home my incandescent lights are used for a few hours at night and for a few minutes in the morning. This simply does not add up to saving the planet. I have tried going to 'green' sites to get answers to this example and have come up empty handed. This bit of nonsense is not just hyped by Al Gore but by many others including high profile ads by Chevron (I have sent them the same queries as well as their green site to no avail.) I also wonder how much extra energy goes into producing compact fluorescents as well as the more toxic elements (plastics and electronics) that are a source of pollution. I suspect that the CO2 savings effects of lights was calculated using a false assumption: CO2 emissions per hour from a coal fired electricity plant divided by electrical capacity (in watt hours) equal CO2 emissions per watt hour. The fallacy is that the emissions vary per watt consumed.
Don't think that I advocate waste - I do not and if anything I am personally bothered by my wasting anything. The cost of lamp replacement is not justified when I factor in my usage and the problem of breakage which is more frequent with young children and pets in the house. If I believe something is more economical for me then I gladly adopt it - that's me - sensible economics is far more reasonable than jumping on the latest trend.
I heartily support the line of inquiry that the Danish authors put forth:
Getting answers to hard questions is not an unreasonable expectation before we take his project seriously. It is crucial that we make the right decisions posed by the challenge of global warming. These are best achieved through open debate...
Amen.
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