House Sbcmte Meets Twice To "Discredit" Climate "Hockey Stick" - WP

[hatrack]

OVER THE PAST two weeks, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee has held a pair of truly senseless hearings on global climate change. The purpose was not to figure out how to cut carbon emissions. It wasn't even to discuss the science of global climate change in general. Instead, the purpose was to pick at a single study of global temperature patterns, the so-called "hockey stick" graph -- a trend line that purports to show a sudden and dramatic increase in global temperatures in the 1990s and therefore looks like a hockey stick. The graph is hardly central to the modern debate over climate change. Yet the subcommittee has investigated the scientists who dared produce it and hounded them for information. Now that a study of the graph by the National Academy of Sciences has largely backed up the hockey stick findings, the committee has been holding hearings to attack it some more.

A more responsible House hearing on climate change, held by the Government Reform Committee, revealed the utter frivolity of investigating the hockey stick. Even the Bush administration -- which is actively avoiding regulation of carbon emissions -- took pains to acknowledge the science of climate change. Speaking on behalf of the White House, James L. Connaughton made clear that global warming is real and that human causes are at least partly to blame.

EDIT

The reality is that nobody knows how bad global warming will be; responsible estimates vary from manageable to catastrophic. So the prudent move is to take action now as a kind of insurance policy. Yes, reducing carbon emissions substantially is a daunting prospect given American and world dependence on fossil fuels -- so daunting that it induces a kind of denial in many people. But it is a particularly ugly kind of denial that leads a congressional committee to spend this kind of energy attacking scientists, instead of confronting the problems their data suggest.

EDIT/END

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/02/AR2006080201417.html

[redqueen]

1. How is it 'so daunting'?

Is it really so hard to drive more sensible cars, or use public transport whenever and wherever we can? to buy locally-grown produce and locally-produced goods as much as possible? to unplug appliances which operate in 'stand-by' mode when they're not in use, and turn off lights when they're not in use? to use more efficient light bulbs and appliances? to recycle our refuse and buy recycled products?

Honestly... I really don't see how this is so daunting. It seems to me we can do rather a lot just by making small changes.

And really what's the future of the planet worth? Is it really so unreasonable to expect people to make big changes, too?