I'd like to propose another study.
Let's use our given that BigOil is the one industry that stands to lose the most if global warming is allowed to be accepted as fact.
Using our given, let's try to estimate how many paid bloggers are typing their little fingers off overtime under often ethnic-looking avatars [thereby giving the impression that the left and middle are also on board] in order to dispense a wide net of anti-global warming propaganda.
I only say this because those posters who seem most rabid in beating back the global warming initiatives are using nearly identical talking points. It's as if they convene at a website in the morning and then disperse throughout numerous chat sites and boards like this one spreading the message.
I wonder if BigOil would employ people to do just this to save their profiteering monopoly? If they can lie to Congress and get our taxpayers to foot their corporate takeover of the Middle East and get people to die doing this, I wonder if they'd be able to hire a massive blog-force to punch their agenda through?
Ya think?
*waves at "asur" and "Gipper" "dogtowner" etc...*
In other words all the motions we go through to try to "convince" asur for perfect example are naturally ineffective as far as position goes. No one here will argue he came on board with an inflexable agenda. It's just to match his blatant propaganda with facts and to expose his obviou$ indu$try-bia$.
Actually, big coal has more to lose if we start to pursue a policy of limiting our carbon footprint.
No, I don't believe that the "it'sahoax" voices are shills for big oil, but are more likely listening uncritically to right wing political pundits, whose agenda seems to be to counter anything that they perceive as "left", including global climate change.
Why does science get a right or left leaning image? Easy, it's because of the issue of cap and trade, which has been proposed by the other team. If the other guys (you know, the ones with a D after their names) are proposing this, then it must be based on faulty science.
The problem is that they're attacking the problem from the wrong perspective. Try as they might, there simply is no contest between political punditry and scientific data, regardless of what the question is. On the other side, it is the politicians, not the scientists, who are proposing solutions that haven't been proven, that are, in fact, unlikely to produce results. In that case, it is politics vs. science again.
The problem, then, is not whether global climate change is real, or even whether human activities are likely to be accelerating it, but whether any of the solutions being promoted are going to help. Can we change global warming by reducing our carbon footprint? Should we try? Those are the real questions.
My opinion is that climate change is real, and that we'd better get used to it. What we really should do is study the changes taking place and try to understand what is likely to happen, so we can be prepared.
But, of course, I'm not a scientist, nor a politician, so no matter what I think, the politicians will still fight over this issue, accomplishing exactly nothing, the earth will continue to change regardless of what we think or do, and any changes that take place will take us by surprise.
