Merchants of Doubt

Climate-gate took the world by storm in the aftermath of Copenhagen. Offering one side of the story about how scientific doubt on issues like climate change (and tobacco smoke) gains traction is the book "Merchants of Doubt" due out this May. Read a review from grist.org here.

I for one do not need to be convinced of the science, but that's besides the point. Environmentalists lost the world on this one with their own version of scare tactics and misnomers like "global warming" early on. The tragedy is that environmental problems related to our changing climate are very real and happening now, and not just in far away places like Sudan or Bangaladesh. The increase in wildfires in the West is attributable to the altered state of our climate, as is the rampant pine beetle problem throughout the Rocky Mountains. Drought is no longer only the concern of African nations or even the desert Southwest - Atlanta came within a week or so of running out of water a year ago. Labeling everything "climate change", though, is clearly not working because no one seems to care.

But what about framing this differently? What if we explore the very real possibility that responding to our changing climate - whether its changing because of stuff humans are doing or not - provides us with an economic get-out-of-jail free card? If we take the environment seriously for once, we can innovate out of our current economic malaise, create jobs in the process, and generally clean up our act. I am talking new sources of energy that are clean and don't come from parts of the world where people hate us. I am talking cars that people want to buy. I am talking development patterns that are oriented around forms of transportation other than cars (which includes walking, fatsos). Anyone with me?