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."
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.
