Nobody has to start supporting a carbon tax or "wearing hemp shoes," but any rational person with a brain in his or her head ought to "if not fully believe that human beings are warming the planet by releasing greenhouse gases, at least recognize that this is what the data seem to suggest and that it is what the vast majority of scientists who study weather believe is the case."
That's the conclusion of an evidently exasperated Matthew Herper at Forbes, who doesn't expect this to put an end to the political fighting, but does allow us "to start aiming our fiery furnace of a political system at actually solving our problems." Fight over a carbon tax, a pipeline, or composting, but at least admit the facts, he argues.
He then lists some of the main objections he has heard from conservative friends and the reasons why he thinks those objections are not valid. Some say warming has stopped; he explains that it hasn't. Some say it's too big a leap to say that human beings are responsible, and they would rather remain skeptical. Skepticism is good, he says, "but it has to come from within the framework of what we already know." The hypotheses we test are those that fit existing understanding, not those that suggest (spoiler alert) that "aliens are using the planet as a dump for the heat from their warp drives." (A frightening possibility I hadn't considered until Herper wrote it! Help!)
He makes nice work with the objections and current scientific views. I don't know how many minds this piece will change, but it certainly clarifies some of the disagreements.
-Paul Raeburn
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