Climate Change.....are critics sane?

So probably like most people, I'm one of those who tries to do my bit for the environment, but probably could make a lot more of an effort. I try to recycle, not take too many uneccesary car journeys (easy when you don't own a car) and the like. I definitely believe that human activity overall impacts the environment more for bad than good, and that we really should be doing more to reduce our carbon emissions and live in more of a harmony with what's left of nature.

(A quick side-note, I remember once when Janet, a Dr. with Servants Cambodia, took me out on a trip to the countryside where she helps do a TB clinic. When we got there, I felt as if I was in paradise, and wondered to myself if this was the first time I had ever breathed "pure" air. It was so untouched by pollution).

So anyway, I was reading on Drudge Report which I use as my source for a right-wing perspective in news (I like to get a wide spectrum of news sources to try and then formulate my own opinion), and found this article written in the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. Written by Richard Lindzen, a professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, the article discusses the politics of climatology and what he sees as the silencing of anyone who dissents on the topic. It is interesting reading, and I don't know enough about the author, or the context in which he is writing to really know what to think of it, but it does make me think. Basically what he says is that the jury is still truly out on how and even if man's activities on earth are causing a global rise in average temperature.

This is basically his main point: "Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred."

Anyway, I find it interesting. I'm the type of person that likes for dissension to be free. The second we start silencing opposing voices we threaten scientific progress and the accountability that comes with having people research debated and questioned. We wouldn't stand for a government without having an opposition, we also shouldn't be content to have a scientific community where dissension, no matter how small the voices, are squashed out of political and monetary concerns (on both sides).

Have a read of the article for yourself here....it's only about a page long. http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220

I think that whatever happens to be the cause of rising global temperatures, we still have good reason to quench our carbon emissions, and burn less fossil fuels which cause mass polution and bad air quality. Humans are here as caretakers of the environment, nature was not made FOR us, but rather for our maker, therefore we must stop acting like we were the only things made, and stop treating the rest of the world as there for our exploitation.