OPINION: Climate change not a done deal

For years now there has been a steady drumbeat for individuals and nations to get on board with lowering atmospheric CO2 levels. Skeptics are ridiculed and marginalized in the media and scientific journals. Barely a week goes by without some new report about bad news on the environmental front being the result of our planet steadily warming. And there's nothing wrong with that. Information about a variety of issues is important to modern society. The problem is how climate information is presented to the public.

Will Rogers once said that all he knew was what he read in the newspapers. These days that's been updated to television news.

Most regular folks have neither the expertise in climate science, nor the time to research such a complicated topic to be able to sift through the data and make independent decisions. That means it's critical for media outlets to present as much information as possible so the public can be informed, not indoctrinated.

That's what led to the creation in 2002 of the Hawaii Reporter. The online news outlet offers "views from all perspectives, political analysis, opinion and original investigative reporting on government, business, education and politics," according to its Web site.

Last week, the Hawaii Reporter posted a report about a schism in the supposed "consensus" among scientists about climate change and man's responsibility for it.

The news story was based on a U.S. Senate Minority Report paper that profiled 650 international scientists, many of whom were originally supporters of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on which many warming adherents base their scientific arguments and claims of consensus. The dissenters have published peer-reviewed research that disagrees with the anthropogenic model of global warming. Their statements show not only skepticism, but in many cases outright disagreement with the idea that the Earth's climate is changing due man's influence.

Prof. Richard Keen, a climatologist at the University of Colorado, says in the report, "Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the predictions by the UN-IPCC ... . The global temperature for 2007 was the coldest in a decade and the coldest of the millennium ... which is why ‘global warming' is now called ‘climate change.'"

Comments from Keen and the others spark the question: If we're not sure man is responsible for global warming, should we imperil the global economy with onerous restrictions on the use of fossil fuels if such restrictions won't affect the climate?

Let's face it; the climate change/global warming debate isn't going to be settled on these pages, or the opinion pages of any newspaper. It will continue, though, as such debate brings out information for general consumption. And average people need that information when they make decisions regarding which policy makers they send to Denver and Washington. Those representatives will make public policy based on the totality of information available, so it's critical that no voices be cowed into silence.

Regardless of one's beliefs on the science surrounding global warming, it's not a bad idea to conserve the resources we have.

Compact fluorescent lights now come in many shapes and sizes to entice consumers into making the switch. They'll have to eventually as federal law mandates phasing out incandescent light bulbs by 2014. LED technology shows promise for lighting our homes and businesses. CFLs and LEDs use much less electricity, so their use can save money and fossil fuel burned to generate electricity. Americans have shown they can reduce their use of oil. That's a good thing for many reasons. Less pollution, less smog and more efficient use of our resources are a few.

The decisions made on global warming in the halls of power affect every American. Laws restricting the use of fossil fuels, mandating renewable energy regardless of the cost, or new taxes on sources of CO2 will reach into the homes and wallets of every person, so the lawmakers have to get it right.