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Global Warming - My Growing Sense of Unease

By crooky | March 3, 2008

In my life, I have many people who sit on either side of the Global Warming fence. On the one side are my friends and colleagues who say that “global warming is a political animal, not a scientific fact”. On the other side, I have a core group of friends who are confident that Global Warming is real. I am not well-read enough on the topic to make a definitive call on either side but I am a firm believer in the Precautionary Principle. This principle is like a Hippocratic Oath for non-Medical Doctors. Here is a summary of the principle:

The precautionary principle is a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.

Source: Wikipedia

In other words, when in doubt, play it safe. I think that’s my take on the whole issue. Every time my friends and colleagues who deny Global Warming exists hear that there is a problem with some aspect of one of the proposed remedies - for example, the recent announcement that biodiesel isn’t as good from a carbon footprint perspective as we’d hoped - they jump all over it and say “see! I was right! We should just keep driving our SUVs and burning gas forever and ever because it’s the only realistic option.”

I don’t subscribe to this kind of thinking. In my opinion, there are always going to be hurdles in our war on carbon (and, as my friend Ralf Edinger from PAVAC likes to remind me - other emissions like SOX and NOX). Giving up at the first misstep is not the way forward.

I had a friend say something that really disturbed me yesterday. He said “this global warming thing is a money-making scam. It will blow over within three years. Guaranteed.” That is my biggest fear - that we stop asking questions and brush off these issues like it is equivalent to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Like the current battle between Creationists (who are now in mainstream political roles) and those who believe in science - I am scared of anyone who advocates and end to asking questions and continuous improvement. That is a sure-fire recipe for societal stagnation and eventual collapse.

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Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for ten years.

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Topics: Policy, Technology |

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