Politics and Global Warming

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that there seems to be a vocal minority in the US that still doesn't believe than humans created the world's pollution levels and that the pollution has caused global temperatures to rise over the years and that this temperature rise is a threat to us. If you use the commentary section on newspaper web sites as an indicator, it would appear that there are an awful lot of these folks out there; more on that later.

In a recent news report on the current Governor's race in Illinois, the Daily Herald reported that five of the seven candidates for the Republican nomination don't "believe" that humans have caused global warming. One candidate allowed that humans "contribute" to global warming, but wasn't sure how much. The seventh candidate hedged his bets and stated he believes global warming research is "still evolving." I'm surprised he was brave enough to use the word "evolve."

The question was raised to elicit comment from the candidates on their views of "cap and trade" legislation at the Federal level. As such, it's really of small importance to the potential Governor of Illinois, but these candidates felt the need to explain their opposition to cap and trade. Rather than simply stating that they felt that a cap and trade approach to reducing pollution would have an unacceptable detrimental impact on business and employment (presumably because they think cap and trade will add costs to doing business), these politicians felt that they needed to attack the very notion that humans caused the climate changes scientists are observing. The public comments these people made are positively stunning in the depth of ignorance they displayed:

"I don't accept the premise that man is the cause of global warming, if global warming even exists," Kirk Dillard, a state senator from Hinsdale, said at a candidate forum last week.

"Global warming is not created by man and anybody who says that, it's just bad science. It's not true," said Bob Schillerstrom, chairman of the DuPage County Board.

Dan Proft, a Chicago-area public relations consultant, said Al Gore and other global warming activists are "kind of enviro-terrorists."

The State of Illinois is staggering under huge budget deficits, a regressive state income tax that hasn't been changed in a generation, more corrupt politicians than you can shake a stick at, and a public education system that is going bankrupt due to its reliance on property taxes. One could argue that the position of a potential Illinois Governor on global warming, climate change, and whether humans or polar bears caused these problems is of little relevance to the Chief Executive of the State. One would probably be mostly correct.

On the other hand, the fact that five candidates for statewide office had no compunction making such patently ridiculous statements in a public forum is disturbing for another reason. These politicians are so busy pandering to the "GOP base," that they can't accept what every middle school student knows is true; there's no explanation for global warming and its impact on climate besides humans and the pollution we have generated.

Now back to the online comments made by newspaper readers. This article generated the same kind of vitriolic and ignorant rants that cause me to generally avoid reading such commentary. Virtually all of these comments are posted by people using pseudonyms and their anonymity empowers them to make broad assertions as if they were facts. While they lambaste other commenters for making unsubstantiated or false "liberal" or "left-wing" statements about global warming, these posters make just as unsubstantiated claims masquerading as fact. Some of them make simple blanket statements about how well wildlife is faring in the Arctic, as if to settle the fallacy of global warming for everyone.

The ignorant comments of the public after news articles (about ignorant comments of politicians) are even more worrisome than the politicians' statements. The anonymous public vitriol tends to discourage rational discussion, and is little more than online bullying. For an excellent post on what's wrong with the public comment sections of news related web sites, read Steve Dahl's excellent 11/11/09 article "Everybody is a know-it-all these days."

In the end, it's impossible to debate with these folks and expect that they will ever be able to modify their viewpoint. If they don't "believe" in global warming by now, they never will.