re: #260 Charles

Back on Al Gore again, eh?

I guess because Al Gore is a fallible human being, that means we don’t need to worry about global warming.

Whew. What a relief.

Well, Gore is a liar when it comes to global warming. He has done the cause of raising the alarm some temporary good and permanent harm. By his lies he has made it that much more difficult for the truth to be heard, and the truth is that AGW is a genuine danger even IF the Antarctic ice cap isn’t going to melt and drown FLA any time soon.

The science of AGW is sound and convincing. Exaggerations, chicken-little scenarios, and hockey sticks for which the data is lost or forged don’t help the case. In the public imagination, they undercut it or even destroy it. The public reasons that if “the scientists”—and they count Gore as one—-are false in one thing then they are false in all.

But no amount of human mendacity in service to “noble goals” can undo the realities. Glaciers are in retreat. Spring does come earlier. The arctic sea ice is also waning. CO2 levels are up, and the physics of CO2 includes an absorption spectrum that does help trap outgoing IR radiation from the earth that would otherwise more easily escape into space then and there.