Whether or not you're a died-in-the-wool believer in the Church of Global Warming, the Strib's
latest editorializing on the topic provides an embarrassment of ridiculous rhetoric. It's so bad I'm beginning to wonder whether those seriously concerned about Global Warming are going to soon ask the Strib editors to please get off their side for the greater good.
The motive here is their recognition that a very credible NASA scientist publicly dissented from conclusions they have previously editorialized as unquestionable. Since they can't really assault his qualifications, they decided to go with another angle. And that's where things started to get messy. Sadly, this happened in the first paragraph of their editorial.
Last week, NASA administrator Michael Griffin, interviewed by Steve Inskeep on National Public Radio, allowed as to how global warming, caused by human activity, is a real phenomenon, but added that he questions whether it "is a problem we must wrestle with." Well, yes, actually.
It's that "yes, actually" which is going to provide the rope upon which they will witlessly hang themselves. Keep watching...
Griffin went on to explain that, "I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."
Talk about turning logic on its head. Humans aren't judging this the best possible climate; they're judging it the one nature gave us. The entire effort to slow and eventually halt global warming is based on reducing as much as we can the human impacts on climate, thus letting natural rather than man-caused forces determine how warm or cold the Earth will be.
Now if you're a rational human being, you have, at this point, started scratching your head wondering what is so important here that it required an editorial. Because normal rational human beings will note that the "problem" here has been presented on two levels - actual harm, and means of causation. Which one has the Strib decided to focus upon? The latter of course. They are literally saying - hey, whether or not anyone is harmed here
is not the point.
See, to most of us whether 100 people are killed by a natural disaster or by a suicide bomber we find these things equally deserving of our attention. Neither is more desirable than the other. If we know how to prevent either one, we probably should. That is, surprisingly, in contrast to the position of the Star Tribune editorial board here. Seriously, it is. They go on...
Far from expressing human arrogance, those who seek action against global warming express great deference to Mother Nature. They do not want the power to determine climate because they do not think they are that smart. And they are surely right.
Conversely, Griffin and others who suggest that global warming might be a good thing and should be embraced actually are arguing that it's OK for human beings to assume the right and the power to manipulate climate. That's the attitude that displays major-league arrogance.
Thought I was exaggerating before, didn't you? Nope. We have taken the previous pedantic position intending to lecture upon the importance of determining human versus natural causation of warming and asserted a brand new ethic into the mix: Man shouldn't have a role in warming
even if it might be a good thing. Glaciers could be rolling down from Ontario into the Boundary Waters, and the Star Tribune would apparently oppose the deployment of hair dryers at the border. How
arrogant to try to improve our own miserable existence in defiance of Mother Nature's whim! Thank God our tornado warnings aren't reliant on the Strib editors making the call.
And besides all that, they botched Griffin's point as well. No where in anything they cite does he say anything about "wanting the power" to warm the climate. He's merely suggesting that, if human activity is contributing to warming, it's kind of important to know whether a warmer climate equals a worser climate before we run off shrieking like little girls about it. A pretty common sense point, unless you're a Star Tribune editor.
See most people who are all freaked out about Global Warming would go after this guy on the "we've done the studies, and already know about the harm, you jackass" angle. Not the Star Tribune. They had the inspiration to lecture us that the warming itself is completely
beside the point. Whether or not it comes from nature
alone is what we should really be worried about.
On the other hand they do, without explanation or even an appropriate transition, attempt to make this point. At least they insert something about it in non-sequitor fashion...
It also shows extraordinary callousness toward those who inevitably will lose if warming isn't checked. Overwhelmingly, the losers are the poorest of the world's poor in Africa and Asia, not to mention thousands upon thousands of other creatures that are also an important part of, if you will, God's creation. Apparently it matters little to Griffin and others who hold his view that human-caused warming puts everything from polar bears to the entire nation of Bangladesh at risk.
Just so we're being clear, I'm not picking and choosing here. This is the full editorial to this point. You are perfectly right to be wondering why this paragraph even belongs in this editorial.
To sum up the editorial so far, they've been trying to refute a man on the basis that it
doesn't matter whether man-made warming will make the climate better or worse for mankind. Simply the fact that it's
man-made is reason enough to stop it.
And now, by the way, he shouldn't argue that it might not be so bad because... it will be bad. How can someone be so "callous" as to suggest things won't necessarily be bad in the face of such badness?
You can almost picture the point sailing over the heads of the Strib editors while little cartoon question marks form over their heads at this point.
And then, just as awkwardly as they brought it up, they forget about this once more and return to claiming they don't really even care whether a warmer climate is good or bad. We should take what nature gives us and
like it, regardless!
We would suggest that humankind should not want to get into the game of choosing climate winners and losers, human or otherwise.
If the climate of Earth is to change, that's a "decision" best left to nature itself. Human beings are pretty good at adapting to change, but they should eschew the incredible arrogance of initiating change.
When your ideology has driven you to the point you have just declared yourself neutral about whether or not your own damn city is high and dry or covered by mile-thick glaciers - as Mother Nature has occasionally "
decided" for us here in Minnesota - it's probably time to rethink that ideology.
Note to the Star Tribune: There isn't really a "Mother Nature." She's a myth. So there's no one "deciding" these things in your best interest absent human intervention. Trusting in nature to produce the best climate for you makes no more sense than trusting nature to keep your lawn perfectly watered, and your grass at ideal length.
Of
course it matters whether a warmer climate will be better or worse for mankind, and no it doesn't matter
how it gets warmer. The climate is warming or cooling naturally all the time. Therefore mankind has to adapt to warming or cooling all the time. Therefore the question about which kind of adaptation is more harmful than the other is
obviously important as well.
There's a reason Al Gore's movie placed such a high emphasis on scary things like floods and hurricanes. It's because it doesn't make a lot of sense to invest bajillions of dollars in staving off
beneficial climate change. Even if damnable human activity is bringing it about.
Natural climate change is not "better" simply because it's "natural." Just like you're not any dryer keeping out of the rain in a
natural cave then under a
man-made roof. What the Strib editors are asserting here is patently nonsense.
Will Minnesota Viking backup QB Gus Frerotte get a chance to pull a come-from-backup dream season a la Randall Cunningham in '98? Well the dream season will be up to the team to bring about. But the chance for him to play a role in it seems pretty good, considering, Vikings starting QB Tarvaris Jackson is injured again. This time from bumping his knee in the pre-season game against the Ravens. 
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possess is the ability to identify Dorito flavors. In 
