There's a website out there called bloggingheads.tv. It features video streams of two people having a conversation or a debate. Typically, the participants are pundits of some repute, especially in the blogosphere.
I happened across this site a while ago, and it's pretty good. Sometimes, the conversation devolves into a low-res version of what you can see on any Sunday morning shoutfest. But at other times, it stays a little more polite, and I find that I can actually pick up on some new thoughts.
Once such example is the "diavlog" of Robert Wright and Joel Achenbach, posted last May. Wright, among many other things, is the site's founder. Achenbach currently works for the Washington Post. The diavlog is entertainingly random, as Achenbach seems to have come into it with at least a partial goal of tormenting Wright, but they do occasionally stray on topic.
That topic is global warming.
Achenbach, at the time of the diavlog, was finishing up a long piece called "The Tempest" for the WaPo. The article focused on global warming skeptics.
Now, before you scream "YOU MEAN DENIERS!!!" let me finish.
Achenbach, in the diavlog, made me realize at least one thing that I didn't know: those who don't buy (completely) into the global warming idea are not at all unified. He said it more sympathetically in the diavlog; he said it more succinctly in his article:
But when you step into the realm of the skeptics, you find yourself on a parallel Earth.
It is a planet where global warming isn't happening -- or, if it is happening, isn't happening because of human beings. Or, if it is happening because of human beings, isn't going to be a big problem. And, even if it is a big problem, we can't realistically do anything about it other than adapt.
Right off the bat, I liked hearing this. Global warming is a complex problem, and it's instructive to hear that those who don't agree with me about its seriousness are not some homogeneous Rovian blob.
I have come to fear, however, that those who do believe that global warming is a problem are becoming a little too quick to band together. I'm not here to confess that I suddenly have my doubts about the central principle. What bothers me is that some aspects of the situation are less certain than others, and no one who wants the problem addressed acknowledges this. I am afraid that if we make too rigid a case, and turn this into a single question over which a debate must be won or lost by the end of the next election cycle, we won't succeed in dealing with the problem.
One good example: How many times have you heard "so much for global warming" in the past couple of winter weeks?
Here's Achenbach again, from his article:
And Then There's Hitler
Let us be honest about the intellectual culture of America in general: It has become almost impossible to have an intelligent discussion about anything.
Everything is a war now. This is the age of lethal verbal combat, where even scientific issues involving measurements and molecules are somehow supernaturally polarizing. The controversy about global warming resides all too perfectly at the collision point of environmentalism and free market capitalism. It's bound to be not only politicized but twisted, mangled and beaten senseless in the process. The divisive nature of global warming isn't helped by the fact that the most powerful global-warming skeptic (at least by reputation) is President Bush, and the loudest warnings come from Al Gore.
Human beings may be large of brain, but they are social animals, too, like wolves, and are prone to behave in packs. So when something like climate change comes up, the first thing people want to know is, whose side are you on? All those climatic variables and uncertainties and probabilities and "forcings" and "feedback loops," those cans of worms that Bill Gray talks about, get boiled down to their essence. Are you with us or against us?
I want to be clear. I am not suddenly on the payroll of ExxonMobil. I think the data, as I understand them, indicate something very worrisome. But I am pleading for us all to recognize that this is a long-term problem. You don't really understand global warming. Nor do I. No one does, yet. And we're not going to fix things with a magic bullet. So I think it's worth trying to understand all points of view. As cliché as it is, we're all in this together.
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