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« Helpful links to news about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, relief efforts, and more | Main | Help Catholic Extension rebuild Catholic missions... »

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Comments

Ed Peters

Junk science in periodicals edited by incompetents. Dreadful combo.

Michael Kremer

Well, I'm not a scientist, but from what I've read and from the real -- not junk -- scientists I've spoken too, the scientific consensus of at least the large majority seems to be that global warming is real, ongoing and mostly caused by human activity, and that due to global warming hurricanes are going to be and become on average more violent and destructive.

Now, if I say all that I don't have to imagine Nature as injured Mommy gone from nurturing to vengeful. I know there have always been hurricanes. I just believe that human activity has brought it about that in the future they will be more violent. I don't think that this is some sort of punishment, just a natural but unforeseen consequence of our actions.

Now, suppose I'm right. Then doesn't it follow that we should undertake things like reducing CO2 emissions? Isn't that mere prudence? Do I have to be a religiously radical environmentalist to think this? (Guess what -- I'm not -- as you can guess since I read this blog, I'm a Catholic of the ordinary sort.)

Heath Prince

While I'm no fan of radical environmentalism, one doesn't need to be a radical environmentalist to acknowledge the sound science supporting the link between man-made pollutants and global warming. One consequence of global warming, recognizned by most climatologists, is an increase in the severity of storms, such as Hurricane Katrina. This suggests a causal link between the policies we, as participants in a democracy, adopt to curb CO2 emissions and the destructivness of storms (never mind the myriad other consequences of global warming).

Moreover, it is not anti-Catholic to be a good steward of the environment. Your piece suggests this, albeit subtly. Our Catechism, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the US Conference of Bishops each call on us to be good stewards of the environment. . Like the respondant above, I, too, am a Catholic of the ordinary sort, and not quick to bear false witness by proclaiming thousands of scientists to be purveyors of "junk science."

Jonathan Sadow

The problem with the assertions made by the previous two writers is that there isn't any compelling evidence that global warming is causing more and more intense recent hurricaine activity. For example, cyclonic storm activity in the Pacific has actually decreased in the last few years, and if global warming were causing more storm activity, shouldn't the effects be global? It should also be noted that most of the strongest storms recorded in the 20th century occurred in the first half of the century; if global warming due to anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases were the cause, shouldn't we have seen the strongest storms in the latter part of the last century?

This isn't to say that global warming isn't contributing to recent increased storm activity, but the theory that it's the major cause fails all the tests. Responsible climate scientists know this, but saying that increased storm activity is due to, for example, a cyclical change in the ocean current flow in the north Atlantic (one of the more popular theories) just doesn't sell as many newspapers as does the spectre of global warming. That's why the publicity hounds push global warming, although by doing so they present another example of scientists drawing conclusions far beyond what the data actually support.

Jeannine McDevitt

Hurricanes come and go in cycles, and we are just finishing an exceptionally mild period of about 20 years. The climatologists who study hurricanes do not attribute the increasing severity of recent hurricanes to global warming but to the actions of this cycle of nature. Actually, four of the five strongest storms of the last hundred years happened more than twenty years ago.

The warming that we now see in the climate of the earth may also be part of a natural cycle, and this concept is far more common among climatologists than the media would lead us to believe. No one really knows for sure how much warming is caused by human activity and how much is caused by other factors in the earth's climate. For example, several hundred years ago, Europe went through a "little ice age." Some hundreds of years before that, there was a significant warming trend that had wine grapes growing far to the north of where they can grow now and that caused colonies to be started in Greenland--colonies that later died out because of the cooling trend. Neither of these changes in climate was caused by industrial activity or CO2 in the atmosphere!

The Kyoto Protocol would severely restrict our CO2 emissions--and our economic growth--but it would not restrict emissions from developing countries which are now producing record amounts of pollutants. There is doubt whether Kyoto would do any good, since large amounts of new pollution would be allowed under the treaty and since the science behind the concept of human-made global warming is actually in doubt. Yes, climatologists actually disagree about the origins of global warming. Moreover, a single volcanic eruption can make the manmade greenhouse gases look insignificant!

There is nothing virtuous or particularly Catholic or Christian about acting without sufficient evidence, and there is nothing morally wrong about taking the time to verify the data.

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