Re: [asa] Global Warming a myth! So says Falwell

This sounds like the same "Smith vs. Jones" cracked pot defense I read in a book
attacking evolution. I love this little illustrative anecdote:

Smith borrows a pot from Jones, and when Jones gets it back it has a crack in
it. After hearing the accusations Smith hires a lawyer which then prepares the
following items for Smith's defense:

1. Smith never borrowed the pot from Jones.
2. When Smith returned the pot, it wasn't cracked.
3. The pot was already cracked when Jones loaned it to Smith.
..and finally ...
4. The pot does not exist.

Note how below, Falwell notes that we seem to be in a warming trend. But later
on the science indicating any such thing is "refuted". But then also, if there
is one it isn't being caused by humans. And finally it isn't what Christians
should be focusing on anyway. You can be sure if all those things were finally
demonstrated to their satisfaction they would fall back on a different response:
e.g. there's nothing substantive we can do about it anyway. All bases will be
  covered.

I'm not saying that there is nothing to what Falwell writes. Like someone else
noted, it isn't wise to automatically dismiss because of an unliked source.
There may be something to some of his accusations, but surely it betrays
desperation when a cause pulls together a hodge-podge of somewhat contradictory
items to defeat an enemy. Falwell probably is not alone in constructing such a
"layered" defense. You'll have to excuse that the anecdote above came out of
Well's book against some evolutionary reasoning. Whatever you may think of that
source, I think it is a wonderful illustration of human debate.

--merv

> By: Jerry Falwell
>
>It appears to me — and
> I have been intently studying this subject — that we are now in a warming
> trend.
>
snip

> Never mind that in November, for the second consecutive month,
> temperatures across the continental U.S. were cooler-than-average,
> according to scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
> Administration’s National Climatic Data Center. We wouldn’t want facts
> like that to get in the way of a global warming political movement, would
> we!
>
>
> National Review Editor Rich Lowry recently reported: “Shock tactics
> inevitably mean simplifying in an area of unimaginable complexity. No one
> knows how to create a reliable model of the planet’s climate, and
> inconvenient anomalies muddy the story line of the warming zealots. From
> 1940 to 1975, the global temperature fell even as CO2 emissions rose.
> Since 2001, global temperatures have only gone up a statistically
> insignificant 0.03 degrees Celsius. And in recent years, the oceans have
> actually gotten cooler.”
>

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Received on Mon Feb 26 17:39:06 2007