The Raleigh News & Observer ran an op-ed today that manages to make offensive and silly arguments, while not providing any evidence to support the points made in the piece.

1) The author argues that China and India won’t commit to reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions because the United States and other wealthy nations must first take the lead.

Comment: China and India are not signing on to CO2 emissions reductions because they don’t want to destroy their economy.  I don’t think Chinese leaders will say “Gosh, if the U.S. destroys their economy with Waxman-Markey, maybe we should destroy our economy too and we get to remain a developed nation.”

Not to mention, the “other wealthy countries”  (i.e. EU) have already taken steps to hurt their economy through a failed cap and trade program.

2) The author blames the skeptics for keeping the U.S. from pushing forward with global warming policies.

Comment: That is quite a compliment to the “skeptics.”

3) The author compares “skeptics” to some South African leaders who denied that HIV caused AIDS.  Granted, this is a step up from the usual attack comparing skeptics to Holocaust deniers.

Comment: Since the global warming extremists have no arguments, they have to make outrageous and offensive arguments.

In the author’s own words, “climate change is a complex problem,” yet he compares it to the connection between HIV and AIDS which was clear, observed, and objective.

Climate change is complex (not a problem) and whether human-produced CO2 is a significant influence on global warming is not a given (don’t tell me about consensus–science isn’t a popularity contest with the most popular theory winning).

– Even if one buys human-produced CO2 is a significant influence, are there other more significant factors?
– Is the planet, at this point, still warming given recent data?
– Is a warmer climate problematic or beneficial? 
– Are temperatures at unusually high levels?
– What is the level of harm, if any, that would be caused by warmer temperatures?  

At any point in this analysis, someone could believe that global warming isn’t a problem, but if someone does, he is a “skeptic.”

Finally, even assuming that global warming is a big problem, what are the best solutions?  Restricting CO2 would be the worse solution because there’s nothing meaningful we can do to change global temperature and it would come at a cost that would devastate the economy.  If we want to do something, the last thing we’d want to do is undermine the wealth necessary to adapt to warmer temperatures and possibly develop solutions that actually could make a difference.

BTW: Anyone that agrees that global warming is a problem but doesn’t agree with the extremists’ solutions are a “skeptic.”

4) The author wants to stop talking about the science.  “We must quit questioning the scientific facts and start talking about what we will do about them.”

Comment: I don’t blame him.  I’d also want to stop talking about the science if I were an extremist.  He doesn’t include any arguments to counter the “skeptics”–in an op-ed that argues for us to stop discussing the science, it probably would have been a good idea to give evidence to show why the skeptics’ scientific claims are inaccurate.