Friday, February 02, 2007

Climate change isn't real - don't you have to drive someplace?

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported today [BBC news story here] that climate change is merely "very likely" to have a human cause. Which means that somewhere between "very likely" and "certainly" there is a possibility (with a probability of about 0.10, according to scientific understanding at this point) that humans might have nothing to do with rising temperatures and the floods, famines, and hurricanes that accompany them.

Never mind the fact that the "likelihood" of human-induced climate change has been converging towards certainty in recent years as climate science becomes more sophisticated. Just keep on burning that gasoline, preferably bought from your local Exxon Mobil dealer. It's merely "very likely" that hundreds of millions will die or become refugees because of your well-deserved lifestyle.

[Yo, Exxon-Mobil and the American Enterprise Institute: please send my check for $10,000 to: Christian McNeil, c/o The Vigorous North, Portland, ME. I am also available to conduct a pan-European lecture tour in exchange for a generous advance and expense account.]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow, I can't believe they said that!

I mean sure, you can argue that some of the warming is natural, but I didn't think there was any real doubt in the scientific community that anthropogenic factors are a main component.