Dissing Science

The Boston Globe has published an editorial on global climate change that once again illustrates how the Bush administration does not live in in the reality-based community. The article is by Derrick Z. Jackson and is entitled "Hot Air and Global Warming". It troubles me that the major news outlets do not report on this regularly. Somehow, by only occasionally calling it to our attention, they lead us to believe that the issue of climate change is just one story among many stories. In point of fact, this is the most important story in our world today because of the catastrophic consequences to the earth and its inhabitants if we don't do something soon.

Here's an excerpt from the Globe article:

Earlier in the month, the former chief scientific adviser to the British government, Lord May of Oxford, bluntly compared Bush to a modern-day Nero. Last fall, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, ''If what the science tells about climate change is correct, then unabated it will result in catastrophic consequences for our world. The science almost certainly is correct."

At the recent London conference, [British economic minister Gordon] Brown said, ''Environmental issues including climate change have traditionally been placed in a category separate from the economy and from economic policy. But this is no longer tenable. Across a range of environmental issues, from soil erosion to the depletion of marine stocks, from water scarcity to air pollution, it is clear now not just that economic activity is their cause, but that these problems in themselves threaten future economic activity and growth."

Nero and his fiddlers would hear none of that. Asked last month what the science was on global warming, [U.S. director of environmental quality James] Connaughton said on CNBC, ''There are many different views."

The science ceased to have many views years ago...

The facts are not swayed by ideology. Facts are facts and the neo-cons can believe until they are blue in the face that global warming is not a problem and climate change will still happen. It is already happening. The facts speak for themselves.