A retired physicist friend has sent me a NYT piece by John Tierney on the stolen emails and accusations of impropriety issue. Included was the extensive discussion of his column by readers from different perspectives. By current standards Tierney is an exceptionally intelligent conservative writer with a significant bias towards the global warming deniers who, whatever the ultimate result of the arguments over programming problems, are in my opinion simply wrong. His comments section has a number of substantial and accessible pieces, often by people very knowledgeable about these issues. Reading this relatively short piece and the comments it elicited is a good way to get a feel for what the genuine issues are without having to wade through endless discussions of conspiracies, crimes, and deliberate dishonesty.
Very significantly, Nataliya Petrova has alerted me that Ronald Bailey, the science writer over at Reason, the major free market libertarian magazine, has decided that global warming is a problem, and that it is human caused. He has a very interesting piece on that issue and ways to deal with it.
UPDATE – Over at A Few Things Considered there is a beautiful graphical presentation of the dominant warming denial arguments, and pithy statements as to why they fail to persuade. For the more scientifically literate, in the discussion of the graph you find arguments about its weaknesses and also an extended debate with a scientifically literate skeptic. It gives you a sense of what real scientific argument is about, rather than the politicized hoopla that we get hit with most of the time.
Read Previous Post
More from Beliefnet and our partners