A little global sense

Chi Trib calls global warming the “greenhouse gas phenomenon that most scientists believe has altered climates across much of the . . . world,” (italics added) thus achieving a sort of balance on the issue.  It’s far better than Sun-Times’s Jim Ritter’s reference to what “scientists,” not most or many, hold in regard to the nature of gayness — “Scientists have rejected earlier notions that homosexuality is a mental illness.”

Furthermore, Trib’s Howard Witt says, “The signs of warming in the Arctic are not merely anecdotal,” which is to head off at the pass the complaint about newspaper coverage of trends that sloppily finds men and women on the street with mostly sad tales that support the trend.  Witt quotes NASA researchers.

“Experts said” rears its ugly head, however, with regard to ice-recessive winters.  A NASA researcher is promptly quoted: how about “one of these experts” with regard to her?  And a “many experts” would do nicely also.  It’s a matter of the reader feeling snookered or not, or subtly urged to think (illogically) this way.

But I tell you, all is forgiven with three paragraphs quoting the opposition, an MIT man who recognizes warming data but considers it natural and not man-made. 

"The Earth is always warming or cooling. Industrial output has nothing to do with global warming. There is no evidence so far that we've gotten beyond natural warming."

In this the reader has the wherewithal to think about the matter, rather than head for the hills or valleys or basement with the usual “Warming is coming!  Warming is coming!”

Rebuttal of the dissident is prompt, by a man “who reviewed 928 scientific papers about climate change published between 1993 and 2003” and found them to say the enemy is us.  Here might be a good point to note the objection that far more funding is available for people who find that than for those who don’t. 

But I am so pleased with Witt’s relatively concise (1100 words) and clean-copy account that I intend to pass over that objection in silence.  Yes!  Let no man say I cheated, either! 

However, I definitely could have done without the village elder’s opinion-as-closer in the matter.  Where does he stand on the nature-vs.-manmade argument anyhow?