Debate Over Global Warming is Good for the Environment

Creation Care, Politics — By Dustin R. Steeve on December 9, 2008 at 4:04 pm

“The debate over global warming is over.” This is the most rhetorically powerful (read abusive) and overused card played by those who claim to be champions of the environment. The debate is over. It seems to me that those who make this claim operate on the assumption that debate leads to passivity, to a lack of action. The thinking goes: Debate creates inaction! Inaction stops progress! Progress must be made! End debate!
Given the above line of thought, it is not unreasonable to arrive at the assumption that debate stops progress. And yet, the assumption is flawed.


While I believe that it is true to say that debate can stop action, I do not believe that it is true to say that debate stops progress. Actually, healthy debate improves a person’s critical thinking and better enables them to determine a proper direction for action. Since people make progress only by taking those actions that move them closer to a goal, debate helps us make progress by eliminating unhelpful actions that move us away from a goal leaving us with a clear idea of the actions needed to move us closer to a goal. In other words, debate serves to clear a path upon which we progress to our goal. If you eliminate the debate, you eliminate the path and, consequently, your ability to progress most efficiently.
To pull this thought out of cerebral land, I point to ethanol. Because the “debate was over,” people felt compelled to act (and act quickly) to save the planet from oil. The solution: ethanol. In their heart, nobody really thought that ethanol was a great idea. The evidence proved that more gallons of gasoline were burned making ethanol than were produced by ethanol. This evidence puzzled many people, but space was not given to debate and solve this puzzle – progress needed to be made! Democrats in Congress (as well as some Republicans) pushed through all matter of ethanol subsidies and other legislation. Ethanol became the sexy, trendy thing on university campuses. A “green” fog surrounded the issue. Consequently, it is only now that information about ethanol’s negative impact on the environment is being openly, honestly discussed… and debated. As it turns out, not only does ethanol production require more gasoline use than it can match once produced, but ethanol also puts out more harmful greenhouse gasses than does gasoline.
In brief, had debate been allowed to continue and global warming critics not been demonized, we could have avoided the ethanol debacle. As it stands, we learned a little too late through experience. Time, your and my tax dollars, and the dinners of many impoverished people worldwide have been wasted on a project which was first a bad idea unfiltered by debate.
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  • ex-preacher

    David,
    The website breaks down the 3,697 signers by discipline and ends up with 40 who have some education in climatology. Signers pledge that they have at least a B.S., but there is no other indication I can find about what exactly these individuals have done, studied or even read to make them qualified to make a judgment on climate change. Please point out where I said they must be “making uninformed or ideologically biased judgements.” I am simply saying I have no idea what their qualifications are. I am certainly open to considering their views, but I need to know exactly what makes them scientific experts.
    We could go on and on about the significance of the word “almost” (“he was almost killed” versus “he was killed”), but I was most bothered by the fact that you deliberately misquoted me. I have long ago given up trying to correct certain people around here who constantly misquote and mischaracterize others’ statements, but I hadn’t given up on you yet. Your latest post tells me that perhaps I should add you to the list of people who value “scoring points” over finding the truth.

  • http://ateam.blogware.com David N.

    Ex,
    “but I was most bothered by the fact that you deliberately misquoted me. I have long ago given up trying to correct certain people around here who constantly misquote and mischaracterize others’ statements, but I hadn’t given up on you yet. Your latest post tells me that perhaps I should add you to the list of people who value “scoring points” over finding the truth.”
    I’m flattered. In any event, my misquoting of you wasn’t intentional, but I suppose it was sloppy. I simply honed in on the word “zero” when I first read your comment and didn’t pay attention to the qualifier. I’m still not entirely sure how “almost zero” is any better. Saying “very little” or something similar would have at least conveyed to me that you acknowledged the possibility of them having SOME credibility, but that’s not really an important enough issue to press any further. I’m not even arguing that these folks DO have real credibility, but they are at least making claims to having it, and I’m only concerned that we don’t casually dismiss educated opinions without good reason.
    Out of curiosity, how much importance would you give to the consensus of the scientific community? By that I mean to point out that scientific consensus has been on the wrong side of issues in the past, and sometimes it took the persistence of a maligned minority to turn things around. So, in this case, suppose that these 40 climatologists are the only climate experts in the world to dissent from what is otherwise the consensus on global warming. Would you say that the most reasonable position for a laymen observer to take would simply be to go with the current consensus, or would you say that, in order to have an educated opinion, one ought to find out as much as possible about the dissenting minority and see if there is any good reason to prefer their opinion? To follow up on that, if you would say the former (go with the current consensus), do you think that there is ANY merit in someone choosing to withhold their full-fledged support for the consensus until they have very good reasons for rejecting the opinion of the dissenting minority?

  • ex-preacher

    David,
    I appreciate the civil tone. I accept that your misquoting was unintentional. I originally had written “zero credibility” and then decided that was too harsh since I really don’t know who the signers are or what their credentials are.
    As far as the weight I give to consensus in the scientific community, I hesitate to give a blanket answer since it would depend on the exact issue at hand and whether I thought the scientists actually had some basis to form their opinions. There are some areas where I would value their opinion no more than anyone else’s. But when it comes to areas where they have expertise, I do tend to give a lot of weight to their views. If five doctors told me I had a brain tumor and my dentist said I didn’t, I would go with the doctors.
    In the case of climate change, it certainly could be that the minority of experts is right. In fact, I hope they are. But I think they need very good evidence to prove that the overwhelming majority of their colleagues are wrong. It seems odd to me that the website does not tell us the names of the forty. Are these people who took a few courses as undergraduates or are they mature scholars who have studied the issue in depth? On issues of great complexity, it is hard for laypeople to fully understand the topic, but I have read many of the arguments on both sides and am convinced that anthropogenic glocal warming is real.
    On many issues, it really doesn’t matter if we hold out on making a decision until unanimity is reached. In this case, the risks of doing nothing are, in my opinion, simply too grave. As even a skeptic like Dr. Joanne Simpson has said, “What should we as a nation do? Decisions have to be made on incomplete information. In this case, we must act on the recommendations of Gore and the IPCC because if we do not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and the climate models are right, the planet as we know it will in this century become unsustainable.”

  • http://www.clairechiang.net/ Claire

    If you ask me, I still don’t think the debate is completely over. The evidence we have collected is too small of a sample of the earth’s environmental history to make a clear judgment in my opinion.

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