When the Wall Street Journal published an opinion editorial that claimed to be signed by 16 scientists who believe that global warming is nothing to worry about, it was an act of purposeful dishonesty. It is easily confirmed that not all of the 16 signers of the short article are scientists, and that even among those who are scientists, many work in fields that have nothing whatsoever to do with climatology. One of the scientists studies hardening of the arteries, for example.
Within the entire field of climate science, those who don’t agree that global warming is a serious problem are a tiny minority. More importantly, the actual scientific studies on the subject that have been completed and peer reviewed present a remarkably consistent picture: Global warming is real. Global warming is primarily caused by human industrial activity. Global warming is already causing significant economic damage.
Just consider the highway where ten people died in car accidents yesterday after a stretch of Interstate highway in Florida was covered in smoke from a burning swamp. A swamp can’t burn, normally, because it is by nature wet. The swamps in this area are no longer wet, however. Because of highly unusual drought conditions, the swamps in this part of Florida have all dried up. In these locations, global warming has had a very literal meaning – the earth itself is on fire.
The environmentalist button you see here is a visual symbol of the burning planet Earth, a kind of icon that you can pin to your shirt as a reminder to others, wherever you go, that global warming is very real, and it’s a problem we need to face up to as soon as possible, before more death and destruction results.
