Emailing "What if They're Wrong?"
While traveling through Asia this week, I noticed an interesting TV commercial in my hotel room by NEC. The commercial features a boardroom scene with the CEO-type fretting about high IT energy costs, and one of his employees suggesting a movement to NEC energy efficient servers to save money. It's the first Green IT TV ad I've seen, and I suspect it's only the beginning as Green IT continues to grow and expand.
It's a little jarring, therefore, to read the Chicago Tribune's write-up this weekend about GOP politicians hammering the science of global warming. There's always been the Beckian/Palin wing of the party that's denied
global warming, but now, even mainstream politicians have jumped on the bandwagon. Mario Rubio (running for FL's Senate seat against moderate Charlie Crist), Tim Pawlenty (one of the earliest to openly hint he's running for President in 2012), even John McCain -- all have spoken in the past about the need to restrict carbon emissions, but are now openly questioning whether global warming exists or whether it's caused by humanity.
The trend is clear -- it's cool to bash the science of
global warming. The East Anglia University "Climategate" scandal didn't help, and neither did the UN's IPCC panel's admission that not its science has been up to usual rigor. There's some polling to indicate that the public is now more confused than ever, and that the number of people who doubt the science of climate change is growing. There's a concerted effort to fight back on this campaign, being waged by scientists and
observers who insist the science of
climate change is solid, to government agencies such as the UK's Met Office, which this week released a scientific paper arguing that the link of
rising temperatures to human activity is even stronger than before.
Throughout this storm, I'm reminded of a little analytical exercise I read somewhere once, called "What if they're wrong?" In this case, the first question is "what if the scientists are wrong, and climate change is not happening?" Cap and trade restrictions can be expensive and disruptive to national economies, for sure. On the other hand, an economy less reliant on foreign oil and more developed on renewable energy may not be a bad thing even if the scientists are wrong. The second question is, "what if the climate change deniers are wrong" and the planet is warming leading to catastrophic climate change? Hmmm... it doesn't take much imagination to quickly realize which scenario is worse. Let's hope some clarity and level-headedness returns to this debate soon.