Mr. Moderate

It is a fact that the Earth is undergoing a period where our climate is getting warmer and warmer. It is also a fact that this is not a new thing, but that the climate on Earth has gotten warmer and colder at various times in the past. No sane person should dispute either of those two statements.

What is disputed by scientists is to what degree human activity contributes to global warming. This scientific dispute makes it impossible to produce a valid cost-benefit analysis of what changes in human activity need to take place, at what cost, and for what benefit.

During the 20th century, the United States developed a system of defining where flood plains were and how high the water would get every so many years. Then, we told everybody not to build on a flood plain unless they were able to take reasonable precautions against the risk of flooding. Some towns were forced to evacuate and move to higher ground because it was just too risky to leave them where they were. Another way to deal with the problem is to simply deny flood insurance to anybody who lives in a flood danger zone.

We can now predict with equivalent certainty that the oceans of the Earth are going to rise over the next several decades. So, cities like St. Petersburg Florida, which have coastal roads that are only a matter of a few inches above sea level at high tide, will need to be treated in the future in the same way we have treated flood plains in the past.

Scientists also predict that the fertile areas of North America will be able to produce more food, while other areas of the world will be subject to drought conditions. In other words, it need not be all bad. Global warming presents an opportunity as much as it presents a challenge.

I refuse to be herded by a bunch of Chicken Littles of the left into taking drastic actions that may have no real benefit to the environment. But I also refuse to ignore the threat of global warming. We know how to plan for such threats. We need to admit that our environment is very likely to change over the next several decades and we ought to begin taking reasonable actions to avoid the worst of the bad things which will necessarily and predictably occur.