"Warming debate seen from abroad "

Response to Editorial in Indianapolis Star  by Paul Goettlich 51jun01

[ Star editorial below ]

Dear Editor,

I read your thoughts on global warming with great dismay. The use of derogatory comments - scruffy, antics, bizarre, extremists -- in describing street theatre as if it is something less than legitimate, shows your contempt for and fear of the masses. Because of corporate control of the media, street theatre is one of the few remaining methods of communication left to common people in expressing their enormous dissatisfaction with policies that are obviously flawed. 

I particularly take offense to your description of these people as extremists. For the true extremists are the ones who, while unable to pinpoint the cause of global warming, would push ahead full-throttle with plans to increase the use of fossil fuels rather than exploring all options of energy conservation. 

Readers are consistently given less than the facts on a wide range of issues including toxics, genetic engineering, politics, and much more. From my perspective, journalists attempt to fit issues into easily defined packages that will please editors who print what they think the public should read in order not to offend advertisers. Most times, issues are researched by consulting proponents of so-called conservative views, while neglecting the opponents. 

Through an increasingly myopic view, it is concluded that no action should be taken on global warming until the source has been proven; globalization is good for all, while corporations wealth explodes and the poor sink lower; genetically engineered crops will feed the world and are safe, even though poverty prevents access by the poor and no safety testing has been done.

The thoughts of so many supposedly well-educated people seem to me to be the ones that should be described using words such as hype, bizarre, and unreliable. Bush's call for further research into global warming is but a stalling tactic to facilitate the proliferation of oil and coal power plants. 

The precautionary approach to global warming would be the more conservative approach, and would be the sensible course at this time. If this is proven to be unnecessary, we will be all the wealthier for having saved fossil fuels, and no harm will be done other than to deny Bush of oil income. Yet, if the opposite, less cautionary approach is taken and proven wrong, there will be no turning back. 

Best regards,
Paul Goettlich

contact Paul through mindfully.org at info@mindfully.org 

Warming debate seen from abroad 

Editorial / Indianapolis Star 15jun01

Our position: The Europeans protesting Bush's visit belie a high level of public support for his policies.

After a week of watching Europe's scruffily dressed protesters dance across our TV screens, Americans are probably coming to believe the media hype about how profoundly disappointed Europeans are with President Bush's environmental policies.

Don't be misled by the street theater, which is standard fare whenever the president travels. The antics of bizarrely dressed throngs chanting in the streets of Goteborg must not be taken as a reliable indicator of public opinion across the whole of Europe.

These are the extremists. Most Europeans are well aware of the many benefits they enjoy from a healthy, growing industrial economy. Like Americans, they worry about the environment, but they also love their cars, cell phones and computers as much as we do.

It's a good bet they were heartened when Bush declared, "Mine is an administration that is deeply committed to a prosperous Europe and whole Europe and free Europe."

While center-left governments in France and Germany pay lip service to the 1997 Kyoto treaty on global warming, the fact is that implementing this treaty, which would require Draconian cuts in energy use, is just as much a political impossibility in Europe as in the United States. Bush has done nothing more than admit the obvious.

His call for increased research into global warming should be well received by all who have looked closely at this issue. Until more is known about the mechanisms driving climate change, it would be folly to take drastic actions to curtail carbon dioxide emissions. There is still too much uncertainty.

"We are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide, nor to forecast what the climate will be in the future," says Richard Lindzen, one of the 11 members of a National Academy of Sciences panel that issued a report on climate change earlier this month.

Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT writing in the Wall Street Journal, said the panel's findings support his view that implementing the Kyoto treaty would have no appreciable effect on global warming. 

It's too bad that Lindzen and the NAS scientists can't get equal time on TV with the Goteborg protesters