Not what you think!!!
Or maybe it is what you think. James Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute earth sciences unit and he says, according to ABC News, that any agreements that might be reached in Copenhagen next would be so flawed it would better to start over from scratch………whatever exactly that means.
But he bases his claims on the notion that any treaties or agreements would be done on the premise of cap and trade issues like paying extra money to continue polluting.
Is this really what’s behind Hansen’s wish for failure? Even though Hansen is one of the foremost “experts” on global warming, after the recent hack job of emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K., his own data is now under great scrutiny and rumors are flying around that some are interested in suing to get that data.
Maybe in some perverted way this is to somehow save face once everything is all said and done. After all, there has been dissension and serious skepticism as the the validity of the data Hansen has used to support the man-made global warming theories. Perhaps he sees the writing on the wall and figures if Copenhagen fails, he might be able to say, “at least we didn’t do any harm there”…………or something.
Copenhagen should fail. Not so much that we shouldn’t be studying our ever changing climate, but because a great deal of new evidence has seriously brought into question the validity of doom and gloom climate change.
Even if you are one of those that espouse to the notion of “the precautionary principle”, (which basically says that even if science can’t really prove something, if you think it might cause harm to the public, something should be done.) the information leaked from Climategate probably destroys that principle. It certainly rises to a level that would raise serious questions about the validity of any claims made about man-made climate change.
A great example of how someone might view “the precautionary principle”, comes from comments Arizona Sen. John McCain made while a candidate for president in 2008. He often said things like, even if we are wrong about man-made climate change, what harm is it going to do us to do something about it. Other than that being an ignorant statement, is doesn’t take into account the harm that would be done to humans if we were to enact a “cap and trade” like the one being proposed. If we reversed the use of “the principle”, we shouldn’t enact any global warming legislation because of the harm it would cause humans financially.
Maybe everyone should just consider shrinking their own carbon footprints from a trip in private jets, etc. to Copenhagen and stay home and do some real serious thinking about the prospects of the future of scientific research in this country and around the globe. The destruction of all confidence in scientific research is perhaps one of the most frightening notions ever to consider, at least in my lifetime.
Tom Remington
