Maybe greenhouse gases cause or accelerate global warming, as a majority of scientists involved in the field say.
Maybe the gases aren’t the culprit, as politicians, oil companies and their scientists think.
Most of us aren’t in a position to intelligently evaluate the claims of either side beyond saying which we trust more — or less.
Both sides concede that, regardless of whether they win the argument, it’s a good thing to try to reduce the emissions of such gases if we can.
In a 149-page document released last week, government scientists laid out the scientific case for the grave risks that global warming poses to people and to the food, energy and water on which society depends.
The paper said it was “unequivocal” that global warming is happening and that people are to blame.
Fine. Some people will believe them, some won’t — the argument has been hashing back and forth since the 1970s, and it probably isn’t going away soon.
The reality, however, is that this administration has repeatedly tried to change or bury scientific evidence that disagrees with its political position on both global warming and whether humans cause it.
President Bush recently returned from a G-8 summit where he agreed to help reduce emissions by 50 percent by the year 2050. Now, in rejecting the government’s findings, it appears he won’t do much if anything at all on that issue.
And it’s probably just as well as we round the corner to his final months in office.
Regardless of who wins the election in November, we have hope that the next president will be much more willing to establish an effective and coherent policy on emissions and global warming.
