Day 37: My beef with the Great Global Warming Debate, Part 1

After a couple of days off from my usual Twitter-checking and blog reading, I returned to discover a global warming flap that’s been simmering for a week or two has come into full bloom.

In case you haven’t heard, here’s a recap: Washington Post columnist George Will wrote about the follies of global warming believers, just after former vice president Al Gore made another impassioned speech, also about global warming, at last month’s meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  Both men made scientific errors in their presentations — Will seemingly to prop up his belief that global warming fears are exaggerated, and Gore seemingly to exaggerate the effects of global warming. And so the New York Times’ reporter and blogger Andy Revkin compared the two men, taking them both to task. The reactions reverberated far and wide across the blogging community, both from people who worry that global warming is human-caused and dangerous, and from people who don’t believe it. Hundreds of comments showed up underneath the main blog posts in the exchange.

And what was accomplished? Very little, as far as I can tell. In the end, even one of the major players noted that people blew off a lot of steam that might instead be used to power positive action.

You could have copied the 177 comments (at last count) under Revkin’s first post and pasted them under any other global warming post. The conflict seems ready to erupt in all its ugly glory at a moment’s notice. The players are well-versed in their arguments, which usually contain heavy doses of words like deniers, alarmists, Holocaust … you get the idea. I see very little constructive exchange in these comment fests.  

In a post this weekend, Washington Post Ombudsman Andrew Alexander finally acknowledged George Will’s error in a controversial statement about polar ice. But he also made an important observation: “There is a disturbing if-you-don’t-agree-with-me-you’re-an-idiot tone to much of the global warming debate.”

Thank you! I agree that it’s disturbing. More importantly, it takes energy away from working toward solutions. I’ve thought that for a long time. And you know what? Andy Revkin thinks so too. In about the 176th comment after his first post about the Will-Gore comparison, Revkin revisited his writing (and the bitter exchange underneath) to add this:

So my suggestion, if you’re serious in your concerns about a human-disrupted climate, is to stop posting when there’s an occasional — and unavoidable — piece here about the political side, and to send my posts on the solutions side to everyone you know, expanding this Dot Earth space and getting more people involved. Deal?

Absolutely, I say. And so, starting with tomorrow’s post, I’ll be dedicating space at least once a week in my “100 Days of Science” blog to the forward-thinking ways we can actually address global warming, rather than fighting about it.  I assure you: tomorrow’s proposal will be very, very meaty. Stay tuned!