The Big Melt

Conservatives like to debunk global warming fears and they may have a point – but then they may not. The issue, of course, is not Al Gore’s pomposity vs. Michael Crichton’s brilliance, just as the war against Islamofascism is not about George Bush, despite what some liberals might think. In the case of global warming, it should be about a search for scientific fact. Science is evidently reporting this month tremendous increases in polar meltdown with an attendant rapid rise in sea levels. One of the spokespeople warning usof an impending disaster from all this is Jonathan Overpeck, an earth scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who co-authored the studies for Science. Overpeck says the seas could be a meter higher by the end of this century, which I imagine would make the recent New Orleans contretemps rather small change. Is Overpeck right? Probably not. But if he’s half right maybe we should pay attention. This National Geographic article has some of the details.

By the way, I am an agnostic on this issue. But it may be one about which erring on the side of the environmentalists is less risky than erring on the side of their opponents.