A Tale of Two Studies

Here is an article of note from the WSJ:

Two scientific events of note occurred this week, but only one got any media coverage. Therein lies a story about modern politics and scientific priorities.

And before all the Worshippers-of-Gore dismiss the article, they should understand that the author's very reasonable angle:

[T]hose of us who take a skeptical approach to these doomsday climate scenarios aren't trying to end the discussion. The Earth is warmer now than it was in the recent past, and this may be partly attributable to human behavior. But everything else--from how much warmer, to the extent of mankind's contribution, to the cost of doing something about it--remains very much in dispute.

At Silent Planet Uprising, the U.N. is not held in the highest regard, so I think it should get credit when it is due:

The other event was a meeting at the United Nations organized by economist Bjørn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus Center. Ambassadors from 24 countries--including Australia, China, India and the U.S.--mulled which problems to address if the world suddenly found an extra $50 billion lying around. Mr. Lomborg's point is that, in a world with scarce resources, you need priorities. The consensus was that communicable diseases, sanitation and water, malnutrition and hunger, and education were all higher priorities than climate change.

This is the key to the debate. Global warming may be important, but just how important is it? Yes, we should go ahead and fix it--after we end world hunger, educate every child, purify all the world's water, etc.

We are a reactionary society. Politics, for instance, must occur in thirty-second sound bite segments, so there is no way to discuss issues, there is only time to deride the opposing viewpoint (just don't botch the joke!). It is a bad way to work, everything becomes a yes or no question very quickly -- are you for or against the war; do love or hate the environment; are you an evolutionist or creationist. (This is amusing considering we live under the dictatorship of relativism, but that is a bagatelle.) I do not think this is compeletely off base. Everything is a yes or no question--there is only one right answer--but many of the right answers can not be found as quickly as we expect and desire. For now, the U.N.'s little sharing-session understands part of the solution: "in a world with scarce resources, you need priorities." The WSJ gets it too:

Meanwhile, there are far more urgent, and far less speculative, problems that we know how to solve with the right policies. That message may not get scary headlines, but it would improve the lives of more human beings around the world.