Don't Look to Government to Cool Down the Planet
Even if the climate needs cooling, government can't be counted on to do it.
Nov. 14, 2007 — -- Some people were relieved to finally hear the other side: "Thank you, thank you, thank you for your report on climate change. … I'm sick of hearing 'the debate's over' and writing off anyone who differs as a nut. This report showed the true nature of the debate and true lack of consensus, something you can't get anywhere else."
Others were just mad: "Your '20/20' report on Global Warning made me sick. ... Your sarcastic ridiculing of Al Gore … I have lost all respect for you and your reporting."
"Consensus is the stuff of politics, not science," says Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute.
The scientific process ought to be left to play itself out with as little political bias as possible. Politically influenced research is poison to science.
Part of the problem is the IPCC itself. Reiter points out, "It's the intergovernmental panel on climate change. It's governments who nominate people. It's inherently political. Many of the scientists are on the IPCC because they view global warming as a problem that needs to be fixed. They have a vested interest."
Phillip Stott, professor of biogeography at the University of London, says that the global warming debate has become the new "grand narrative" of the environmental movement. "It's something for people to get excited about and protest. It's more about emotion than science." While the scientists thrash things out, what are the rest of us to do?
