> Being skeptical of Climate Change is like being skeptical that Agent
> Orange poses a health risk or smoking causes cancer.
I'm not so sure that's true. But certainly when you frame it that way, you're ending a conversation rather than furthering one.
I will say: I don't think he's making an invalid point when he says "There's a lot of evidence, but global warming encompasses a lot of complicated points: Is it happening? Did we cause it? Is it bad? Can we fix it? Is government-forced conservation the only way to fix it?" ... I certainly haven't seen "scientific concensus" lined up behind the answers to any of these questions except the first one, which I believe he's using as an anchor.
> He hasn't spent a lifetime studying cancer but I bet he believes
> smoking causes cancer. Maybe not?
I think this gets to Dwayne's point, too:
>> But here's the thing: I notice you're not writing skeptical
>> op-eds about the theory of electromagnetism even though your
>> grasp of its details is probably no better than your understanding
>> of climate science.
Which I guess misses the point that Penn is only interested in being cranky about things that are topical; where is the movie by an ex-Vice President warning us that we'd better obey the laws of electromagnetism and that there's no choice in the matter?
:-)
Oh, and:
>> What Penn and his skeptical teammates need to understand, and
>> fast, is that while it's true no one should lecture them about
>> the energy use choices they made in the past, we now know enough
>> to be sure this a dangerous way to do business for much longer.
I think the problem with Penn is that among the things he "doesn't know" about is which possible solutions are worth trying and which aren't. Heck, I don't know that either, and I've probably read more and thought about it more than he has.
I'm sympathetic to "stop doing that!" but I'm a little lost when it comes to "do this instead" ... His show is normally less than an hour long, so that's about all the time he has to consider it. His schtick is to throw up his hands in that case and say "this is bullshit!" ...
So really, he's just the wrong person to ask; because his approach is to criticise the stupid-low-hanging-fruit rather than give a balanced reading of all the points. Hey, he's a (great) magician and a (pretty good, sometimes) comedian; who gives a fuck what he thinks about global warming?
Least of all: him.
/jordan