The silver lining to Arctic global warming - Telegraph

In the Arctic Ocean as elsewhere, the full, destructive power of global warming appears unmistakable. Regional sea ice is retreating fast, threatening to raise global sea levels, destroy traditional habitats and ways of life, and accelerate the rate at which the planet as a whole is warming up.

Yet there is one silver lining to this depressing and disturbing picture.

Global Warming: Selling Austerity to the Masses. | hauntingthelibrary

I can’t help marveling at that. They’ve managed to come up with an ideology, in modern times, that actually bases itself on lowering living standards under the pretense that if we don’t do it, nature will. To campaign for less freedom for people because otherwise “Gaia” will curtail it at some future date. To ultimately, as Monbiot puts it, have people campaign against people themselves.

The Sad State of the Debate « NoFrakkingConsensus

My point is that it’s profoundly uninformed to dismiss someone’s climate change perspective on the grounds that they’re only a meteorologist. If the argument of the Slashdot posters had been that Bastardi holds an undergraduate meteorology degree and is therefore outranked by a Trenberth or a Karoly that would be one thing. But this brings us back to an earlier concern. Someone who holds any degree in meteorology is likely to have a better grasp of these matters than a non-scientist such as Ban Ki-Moon. So should every non-science-degree-holding person be silenced going forward?

Rather than descending into a never-ending disqualification contest, surely it’s better to keep the focus on the strengths and shortcomings of a person’s ideas.