Roy W. Spencer is not a movie actor or a politician or a pop music performer. He is not the type of person who we normally see pontificating about global warming or "wars for oil." No, Spencer is a scientist, a fellow who puts a priority on facts over fears, on evidence over emotions. And this article he's written for National Review is a refreshing (though sober) argument that authentic scientific reasoning is required to effectively address our immense environmental/energy problems. Check it out.The science of global-warming theory can be difficult to grasp. Different scientists offer different views on the subject, which understandably leads to confusion in the minds of the public. We scientists also get confused on the subject.
But even though I am a climate scientist, you might be surprised that there is one subject which I consider to be more misunderstood in the global-warming debate than the science itself. And that is the economics of what to do about global warming.
I am astounded by the naiveté of those folks who seem to think there is some magic, non-polluting energy source out there that “Big Oil” has been hiding from us until all of the petroleum runs out. As these reality deniers continue to drive cars and fly in airplanes, they deny the fact that mankind’s dependence on oil is not out of choice, but necessity.
It makes me cringe when I see bloggers and pundits say things like, “What’s the downside of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions? Even if we’re wrong about man-made global warming, we’ll end up with better energy technologies and cleaner air. And if we’re right, we’ll save the planet!”
The only problem is, no matter how serious you think global warming will be, our current renewable-energy technologies and conservation will make virtually no difference to future global temperatures.
These efforts might make us feel better about ourselves, but don’t expect them to come anywhere close to solving the problem...
The reality deniers also like to use the insurance analogy. We buy homeowners insurance to guard against losses we can not afford to pay for, right? So, if we conserve energy, use more renewable energy, and buy hybrid cars, this will provide us insurance in case man-made global warming ends up being a serious problem. Or so the analogy goes.
Well, in terms of the insurance analogy, you can go ahead and purchase the insurance if you want, but the policy says that you will only get ten percent of the cost recovered if the house burns down.
“So,” a concerned citizen might ask me, “should we not even try?” Sure, we should try. The question is, What should we try? The farther we go down dead-end roads, using up limited wealth along the way, the more difficult, expensive, and delayed will be the discovery of the correct road.
Most Americans don’t even realize that they are already paying, through their taxes, for billions of dollars in energy-technology research. While this is the only road that will lead to success, there has been virtually no public discourse on it....
