Old Talking Points Die Hard: "Climate Change Is Beneficial" Edition

[GoLeft TV]

If you follow the cycle of anti-climate change talking points, you’ll notice a pattern that repeats itself every few years. In between spurts of outright denial, the anti-science crowd will occasionally revert back to a less-heard talking point: Climate change is actually a good thing.

Even as the year 2011 has ranked the 10th warmest year on record, the “climate change is good” talking point has crept back to center stage among conservative pundits and dirty energy apologists who can't help but to acknowledge that climate change is real, but suggest that we don’t need to worry about it.

This particular talking point gained a lot of steam in 2004, when the Cato Institute began hyping the idea that climate change was going to be a net benefit for mankind. Keep in mind, the Cato Institute was co-founded by oil billionaire Charles Koch and has received over $5.5 million from Koch family foundations since 1997, in addition to at least $125,000 from Exxon in the last 13 years.


During the same period that Cato was touting the benefits of warmer climates, other media outlets like London’s The Telegraph were also downplaying the disastrous effects of climate change. The Telegraph told us that, yes, climate change is absolutely real, but that we shouldn’t worry about it because it isn’t a man-made phenomenon. According to The Telegraph, and a host of conservative media in North America, the earth was just in a “natural warming phase” that would soon end and bring about another “natural cooling phase.”


Check out the full story at DeSmogBlog - http://desmogblog.com/old-talking-points-die-hard-climate-change-beneficial-edition

[KT2000]

1. A U of WA professor

just gave a talk in our area about how our local area will be affected. He showed three maps with progressively shrinking snow pack in the mountains that supply our water. The last map had no snow pack in 2050. He said the indicators are going faster than they had projected and the timing on the maps may have to be moved up. I doubt there was anyone in the room that thought it was a good thing - even though that is what they may have thought on their way in.

In Washington, they have a project to describe what will happen to the local areas. This is a good idea because it brings it home in no uncertain terms. In our area there are rising tectonic plates that will accelerate things. After hearing a talk of this caliber, simple explanations just will not fly.

[Odin2005]

2. Fargo is in growing zone 4b now, 50 years ago it was in zone 3b.

Our winters are warm enough now that sugar maples and ginkos can and are being grown here. And we have been getting more snow because of the warmer winters.

[KT2000]

3. Maybe there could be

"demonstrations" such as the one I attended, by knowledgable people, to describe what will happen locally. When the subject is "global," people tend to tune out.