ANOTHER UNPUBLISHED LETTER TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL…
AND, OCCASIONALLY, WE GET LUCKY….BUT THIS ONE SPEAKS TO THE TORNADOS IN FLORIDA, AND THE GENERAL WARMING TREND….AMONG OTHER THINGS…
To: letters@globeandmail.ca
So the Fraser Institute is finishing a report indicating that global warming is mere hypothesis, and that there “is no compelling evidence that dangerous or unprecedented [climate] changes are under way.” This statement is a polite reiteration of Stephen Harper’s comment in 2002 that the Kyoto accord was a socialist scheme created to take money from the world’s wealthier resource nations. Both views come from Alberta, where oil, gas, and the free market are king. Both views reflect the libertarian rejection of the idea that government has any role in protecting the environment. That would get in the way of profits, dividends, and development. As journalist Thomas Friedman argued in his recent book, in the new global capitalism the world is flat. If that is so, and skeptics of global warming are right, then we should be fine. But my money is not on the economists; the scientists have the background and evidence to distinguish the real from the fanciful. Indeed, if skeptics of global warming are wrong, it is very late in the game–perhaps too late–to head off catastrophe. A flat world is a world easily flooded.