People keep e-mailing me links to articles that declare the "hoax" of Global Warming is over; that the e-mails that some are calling "Climategate" prove that beyond a shadow of a scintilla of a hint of a doubt. I might start to believe this if I saw these new disclosures convincing even one person who already didn't think Global Warming was a fraud. From what I see, these leaked e-mails prove nothing of the sort.
I have an odd viewpoint about Climate Change. I want to believe it's a myth. I think the best thing that could happen on this front would be for us to see some decisive proof that we have nothing to worry about. Don't you think that? I just see the case for environmental disaster as, at present, a lot stronger than the case against. It's like 80% in favor of the kind of stuff Al Gore and others are discussing, and 20% against…and the probable disasters if the 80% side is right are so cataclysmic that we can't just sit and hope they're wrong. Supposing there was an 80% chance a bomb was about to go off on your block and a 20% chance it wasn't. Would you just sit there and wait to see how things turn out? I wouldn't, even if it was only a 5% chance.
Of course, everyone can argue the percentages. I say 80/20. You might think 70/30 or 50/50 or 20/80. I think it's about 80/20. The new "Climategate" revelations don't budge the ratio for me…but even if they did, I'd still be at like 79/21. I also think — and I'll bet you agree with me on this — that there are a lot of looneys on both sides, offering up bogus "evidence" that their view is inarguable. When Mankind looks back on this controversy — assuming, of course, that there is a Mankind to look back on it — they're going to note that even a lot of people who were on the "right" side of the question were full of crap.