We’ve been hearing the dire warnings for decades now, scientists and politicians issuing calls to action for us to fight the imminent threat that is Global Warming. Even just a couple of days ago, you had respected scholar Stephen Hawking saying,
“We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible…”
Or how about 10 years ago, when blockbuster documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” tells us,
“Today, we are hearing and seeing dire warnings of the worst potential catastrophe in the history of human civilization: a global climate crisis that is deepening and rapidly becoming more dangerous than anything we have ever faced.”
Let’s go even further back to 2001, when the IPCC released this sobering statement,
“Projected climate changes during the 21st century have the potential to lead to future large-scale and possibly irreversible changes in Earth systems resulting in impacts at continental and global scales.”
Yet here we are in 2017, still waiting for the crisis to hit. So is it any wonder that Americans are having a hard time buying the facts and figures being peddled by these so-called experts?
In fact, a recent Yale Study concluded that only 40% of Americans believe that climate change could affect them personally.
It’s difficult to deny that its getting hotter isn’t it? Those of you living in Arizona or parts of California can attest to the scorching conditions, temperatures hit 125 F in Death Valley and 121 F in Palm Springs last summer. Record breaking heat caused grounded airplanes in Phoenix and had burn centers warning us against enclosed spaces, we definitely know something’s going on right?
Maybe not, according to the latest research conducted by the NOAA, NASA, and EPA’s record keeping on climate trends. Three well respected institutions have concluded that adjustments being made to figures on global warming are, “Totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.”
How are they getting this data you might ask? Well there seems to be some creative accounting going on with the recorded temperatures they’re publishing. The shocking report states that the findings we’re given are, “nearly always accomplished by systematically removing the previously existing cyclical temperature pattern.”
With the kind of shaky methodology being used by these supposedly impartial government bodies our report ends by saying, “it is impossible to conclude from the three published Global Average Surface Temperature (GAST) data sets that recent years have been the warmest ever.”
In fact, this report is just the latest in a line of research promoting a healthy sense of skepticism regarding climate change.
Where do we go for real news in times like this? What do you do when it’s proving impossible to reach across the aisle and have a rational discussion with your attempts met by warnings about an impending apocalypse?
New head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, seems to have an idea that will take on all viewpoints, announcing a “red team – blue team” exercise to put the theory of climate change caused by humans to a real test. Pruitt made the announcement saying, “What the American people deserve, I think, is a true legitimate, peer reviewed, objective, transparent discussion about CO2.”
The discussion in question will involve a red team of scientists skeptical of climate change examining major climate reports providing necessary criticism. These reports then be defended by a blue team of scientists in favor of the climate change theory.
Former undersecretary for Energy under the Obama Administration, Steven Koonin – has championed this idea writing that it, “would produce a traceable public record that would allow the public and decision makers a better understanding of certainties and uncertainties.”
Unsurprisingly there are those arguing against this reasoned approach, with some saying that with peer reviews in place such a back and forth would only give credence to dangerous views. With one A&M University professor even referring to it as, “a fundamentally dumb idea”.
As dumb as it may seem to some, this idea is going forward. Most Americans will surely look forward to science being put under some real scrutiny for once.