The following comments by Don Rady, which come from a paper he previously authored, were made in response to an article published by The Hill: http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/353481-climate-change-deniers-science-always-wins-in-the-end
Doesn’t the lesson we learned from our belated response to the health threats of cigarette smoking justify us doing something drastic about climate change now, before all the facts are in? No, in fact it doesn’t.
Throughout history, there have been scares, doomsday prognostications, and environmental apocalypses, all about fears of the future, often pushed by “the best scientists.”
Do you remember the fears pushed about: cancer from lawn chemicals, deet, DDT, led, oil spills would worsen, copper, zinc, chrome would run out worldwide, widespread death from nuclear power plants, species extinctions increasing, crop yields would fall and thus lead to massive worldwide starvation.
Fluoride and chlorine in the water would cause massive deaths, cell phone radiation, power lines causing cancer, pesticide residuals, killer bees, Freon leading to holes in the ozone and cause blindness, asbestos, mad cow disease, swine flu, bird flu, west Nile virus, Ebola, sperm count would fall.
All types of fats are killers, GMO will kill us all off, UFOs, acid rain is making forests disappear, Y2K crashing computers and society, deserts advancing, asbestos, radon, 1969 ice age and global cooling and mass starvation from global cooling would be inevitable, over population and mass starvation from over population would be unstoppable, and increase in worldwide poverty.
In 1972 scientists declared that we would run out of oil, natural gas, and certain essential minerals by 1993. In 1970 scientists said that within a decade, city dwellers would need to wear gas masks to survive rampant air pollution.
Granted, some of these threats had some basis in science, but none came even close to living up to the extreme hype and apocalyptic bad expectations years later, not even close. All passed without the horrible consequences as pitched, most are now long forgotten. Countless other doomsday scenarios advanced by environmental alarmists have failed to materialize, as people have been living increasingly longer and better lives.
So, is the global warming scare real? It’s doubtful.
At the time of each one of the “crises” above, the most outspoken scientists believed they were really going to, and they often claimed the science was settled. And so too today. But almost all the actions taken by governments to help protect us from those past predicted horrors were unnecessary and caused unintentional harms more than helped.
The alleged solution to stop global cooling in the 70’s was to eliminate fossil fuels. Now the solution to stop global warming is the same, to eliminate the same fossil fuels to fix the opposite? Sounds like the agenda has stayed the same, but the justification or pretense keeps changing.
Based on what we know about virtually all the scares in recent history, the odds are slim that the global warming scare is legitimate, certainly not worth wasting trillions of dollars on.
The pro-global warming argument uses cigarettes as their example of not listening to the experts early enough, before all the facts are in. Over time, it has been proven to be correct with cigarette smoke, but not on almost all the others environmental and science-based scares. It’s time to stop acting on the basis of fear.
