Kudos to The Drudge Report for alerting me to the latest pseudo-informative "discussion" of global warming, this time by ABC News. The ABC News web site has decided that each of us can make a meaningful contribution to understanding the global warming debate by sharing our personal experiences. From the web site's invitation for us to send in our global-warming stories:
Global Warming Affecting Your Life? E-Mail Us
Send Us Your Stories and Video...Extend the Reach of ABC News' Reporting by Sharing Your Observations
— - Witnessing the impact of global warming in your life?
ABC News wants to hear from you. We're currently producing a report on the increasing changes in our physical environment, and are looking for interesting examples of people coping with the differences in their daily lives. Has your life been directly affected by global warming?
We want to hear and see your stories. Have you noticed changes in your own backyard or hometown? The differences can be large or small — altered blooming schedules, unusual animals that have arrived in your community, higher water levels encroaching on your property.
This approach makes about as much sense as asking us to share our stories on how other gradual global phenomena affect our daily lives. What's next: "How have changes in the height of the Sierra Nevadas affected your life?" or "How have changes in the drift of continental plates affected your life?"
Look, we can agree or disagree about global warming (is it occurring? if it's occurring, has man contributed to the phenomenon? if man has contributed to the phenomenon, is there anything now we can do about it? if we can do something about it, would the cure be worse than the disease--e.g., if we could prevent a 1 degree rise in temperature by century's end though throwing the world into an industrial depression, should we do so?). However, for ABC News to believe it can meaningfully contribute to the debate by inviting pop-culture analysis is astonishingly bankrupt in thought and can only be rationalized on the basis that the network believes it can increase its ratings through schtick rather than science.
We each live on this planet for, what, 80+ years--if we're very lucky. That is a nonospec of time in the scheme of things such as global warming (or cooling). The idea that any one of us is going to witness a climate change event that can be linked to global warming (or cooling) is pretentious; actually, the idea is downright dumb.
Moreover, the inquiry by ABC News presupposes that, even if one could identify a climate-change event occurring in his or her lifetime, the event is evidence of global warming. So, for example, I noticed that this past winter in the Los Angeles area was colder and wetter than I can remember winters being in the recent past. Let alone that my observation may have been incorrect (faulty memory, perhaps), does my observation of coldness and rain mean that this observed coldness was caused by global warming? Why not by global cooling?
Anecdotal observations made in a nanosecond of the planet's time are just that-anecdotes of that nanosecond. Such anecdotes may be fascinating (like the dramatic stories of people who live through hurricanes or tornadoes); but these stories belong in adventure series or Reader's Digest and not in a news network's reporting on serious scientific debate.
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