Thursday, February 26, 2009

Global Warming

I'm really starting to feel as though there's no one in the global warming debate that can be trusted. On one side are the energy companies that want to do what they've always done whether it melts the icecaps or not and conservatives that think Jesus is coming back tomorrow, so it doesn't matter what happens to the planet--or that global warming is a bunch of hippie nonsense, anyway. Then, on the other side, are environmentalists who want to switch to wind and solar tomorrow and return to some pre-industrial fantasyland or unrepentant Stalinists who love environmental causes because they provide a new opportunity for controlling other people's lives.

Science, of course, should be able to provide an objective answer, but it doesn't look like that's happening. This seems to be an issue where academia has a preferred answer every bit as much as private industry.