Climate change, particularly global warming, might be a good thing, according to President Obama’s science czar Dr. John Holdren.
In a recent online question and answer session from the White House, Holdren suggested that man-made global warming is preventing a new ice age. Holdren’s official government title is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and he holds degrees from MIT and Stanford. He has taught at Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley.
While nonetheless on board with the Obama administration’s climate change agenda, Holdren reaffirmed that the science behind man-made climate change is settled in responding to a question about whether people are truly affecting the climate or if it is a natural phenomenon.
The scientist insisted that solid evidence exists that fossil fuel burning and other human activities have led to climate change. He then went on to add the following, perhaps contradictory and surprising, footnote.
“We know beyond any reasonable doubt that humans are the main cause of the warming of the earth’s climate that has been measured over the past few decades. The warming is unequivocal… While the climate of the earth has changed over the millennia as a result of natural factors — principally changes in the tilt and orientation of the earth’s axis and rotation, and in the shape of its orbit around the sun — those changes occur far too gradually to have noticeable effects over a period of mere decades. In their current phases, moreover, they would be gradually cooling the earth — taking us to another ice age — if they weren’t being more than offset by human-caused warming.”
Over the years, environmentalists originally sounded the alarm about global cooling, then global warming, and now use an all-purpose climate change appellation. The Obama White House, which is pushing for various regulatory and policy initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has adopted “climate disruption” as the new descriptor.
For the ordinary lay person with an open mind about the whole thing, however, the notion of declaring something as far-reaching as climate change as “settled” seems a bit odd, if not confusing. The role of science traditionally has been to question assumptions and dogmatic beliefs and constantly challenge accepted hypotheses. Moreover, as long as China, India, Russia and other economic powers are unwilling to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, unilateral action by the U.S. whether justified or unjustified will exert little effect on global climate change.
Several scientists who are part of the climate change consensus have even recently admitted that the warming trend has nonetheless been on “a hiatus” for approximately one or two decades.
Commenting on the Holdren revelation, if it can be called that, the Examiner quipped that “His answer is likely to cause heartburn at the White House and outrage among environmentalists… Translated, Holdren is saying is that global warming is real, people are causing it, but it is also a good thing as it is staving off the next ice age. One has to inescapably conclude that it is time to fire up those coal fire plants and put those gas-guzzling cars on the road, least Canada be covered with an ice cap. If the Obama administration is pro-science, the EPA must now mandate that power plants and other industrial facilities pump out as much CO2 as possible.”
Added HotAir.com: “The relatively pleasant weather we’ve enjoyed throughout mankind’s rise across the globe is, traditionally, a fleeting thing. Eventually the glaciers come back and that’s something which our biggest brains have no clue how to stop once they start their southward march.”
Apart from whether global warming might be a good or bad thing, as the Inquisitr has previously reported, individuals such as Weather Channel co-Founder John Coleman and Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore have declared man-made climate change bad science. There are other reputable scientists and public policy advocates who have raised questions about man-made climate change, but they aren’t afforded the media or academic megaphone, and sometimes wind up ostracized instead.
Dr. Roger Pielke, who is not a climate change skeptic, recently exited Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog in part for questioning the role of climate change in natural disasters. He noted at the time that aspects of the climate science field have become “fully politicized.”
Whether you are a climate change believer or not, do you think it’s likely that Dr. John Holdren will be called upon to issue a clarification about the alleged positive aspects of man-made global warming?
[image via YouTube]