by Chris Genovali
The Ottawa Citizen, December 18, 2009
Re: The myth of global warming, Dec 12.
Columnist David Warren’s anti-science polemic reads like something Sarah Palin would have penned. Come to think of it, she recently had an opinion article in the Washington Post peddling the same kind of fringe theories on climate change that have become the new crucible of the political right.
Contrary to Warren’s unsubstantiated conjecture, there is incontrovertible evidence of human-caused climate change. Warren’s denigration of climate change science as a “ponzi scheme” is incendiary ideological sloganeering, bolstered by the selective use of misinformation.
Climate scientist Dr. James Hansen of NASA states that we have already passed what is considered the threshold for “maximum permissible concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”
A study by the Pentagon suggests the impacts of climate change could be disastrous, with the possibility that climate change could prove a greater risk to the world than terrorism. Among potential consequences, if climate change occurs abruptly or at the high end of scenario projections, might be catastrophic droughts, famines and riots.
As a measure of how seriously the Central Intelligence Agency takes the issue, in September it launched the Center on Climate Change and National Security.
According to Warren’s logic, NASA, the Pentagon, the CIA and the UN, of course, are involved in a vast socialist conspiracy, along with conservationists and other “parasitical vested interests,” to fleece all good and righteous western industrialized countries of their hard-earned cash, all in the name of combating climate change.
Warren trots out the so-called “climategate” controversy. Climate deniers in Canada have seized upon climategate to call for a cautious approach at Copenhagen or even an abandonment of mitigation measures.
Climategate does not change the fact that all the credible evidence vetted in countless scientifically peer-reviewed papers shows the primary cause of climate disruption is anthropogenic and that global warming poses severe risks to humanity, requiring immediate action to limit carbon emissions.
Climategate is a convenient sideshow that skeptics have latched onto in a continuation of their desperate efforts to defy reality and sway public policy.
Chris Genovali, Sidney, B.C.
Raincoast Conservation
