Isn’t Cleaner Better?

Many people have fallback arguments.  Fallback arguments are those argument people resort to when their normal arguments fail.  These arguments attempt to shift the framework of a debate to such an extent that an opponent is caught off guard and unable to respond, usually with some vague statement of good that is hard to oppose.  Bill O’Reilly of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor clearly has such a fall back argument when it comes to global warming. In fact, given the problems that have become apparent with the theory of man-made global warming and Al Gore’s movie on the subject, O’Reilly has used it frequently of late:  that fighting Global warming would at least make the world cleaner, and isn’t cleaning up the world a good thing?

I have seen O’Reilly use this fallback argument on several occasions, and so far, at least in the limited time constraints of TV, it has worked well for him.  After all how can one argue against a cleaner environment, particularly when O’Reilly adds the caveat, as he sometimes does, as long as it does not destroy the economy?  The problem is that we are not having a general discussion on what measures we could take to clean up the environment without destroying the economy.  The debate is about human caused Global warming and  specific measures being proposed to correct it.

In addition, O’Reilly argument is a based on a false premise which is that the main effort to stop global warming, the reduction of CO2, would make the environment cleaner.  This is false because CO2 is not really a pollutant.  CO2 released into the atmosphere is not like an oil spill in the ocean that needs to be cleaned up. CO2 is a naturally occurring substance, and is a vital one at that.  “Clean up” all the CO2 and you doom all life on earth, for plants need CO2 to live.  Plants take CO2 and release Oxygen as a waste material.  Animals take oxygen and release CO2 as a waste material.  You release CO2 into the atmosphere, every time you exhale.  Calling CO2 a pollutant, strains the concept of what is a pollutant.  In fact, calling CO2 a pollutant is really little more than a public relation ploy because most people (and O’Reilly includes himself in this group) have no idea of what CO2 is or the important role it plays, but they know that pollutants are bad things and to be opposed.  So calling CO2 a pollutant and then claiming it needs to be cleaned up automatically puts the public, and O’Reilly, on the environmentalist side, and casts opponents in a bad light by making them defend a “polluted world.”  On the other hand, if you see CO2 as a natural and vital part of the environment, O’Reilly’s fall back argument falls apart.  Why waste a lot of money to clean up something that is not dirty?

This is especially true given the huge ambiguities surrounding the entire issue.  While the earth has probably warmed in recent years, even that is not completely certain, as the increase has been very small and there are a lot of factors that must be estimated to arrive at the final result.  But even if we assume that all these estimates are correct, and that the earth has indeed warmed, it is not at all certain it will continue to do so.  Based on solar cycles, there are some scientists who say that we are about to enter a period of cooling.  But again if we assume that the global warming activists are correct and that we will continue to warm, it is even less certain that human activity is having any significant effect.  The word ‘significant’ is key, as it would be virtually impossible not to have some effect.  If the human race consisted of only a single small tribe, who had a campfire every night that would have “some effect”, even if a completely insignificant one. So when supporters of Global warming ask if human being are having any effect on Global warming, the answer is of course yes, but the real question how much are we affecting Global warming?

 It is pretty clear that much of the recent warming is not the result of human activity. After all, scientist have not only found that the earth is warming, but have found that other planets in the solar system have also warmed, which is to be expected if cycles in the Sun are responsible for the warming, but completely unexplainable if humans were the cause. But even if human activity is responsible for 10% of the warming, which would be a large amount given the amount of CO2, which is released naturally versus the amount released by human activity, and we were to cut the effect we had in half, which would be a huge reduction with major social upheavals and negative effects on people lives, that would only be a 5% reduction and would leave 95% of the warming.  In short, not only is there doubt about whether we are a significant part of the cause, even if we are, there is doubt about our ability to do anything significant about it. 

In short, we might waste a lot of money, for a problem that might not exist, and even if it does, our effort would have minimal effect, except that in the process we would cause a lot of suffering.  More next time.