Posted by
Dave Smith on Monday, June 29, 2009 7:31:49 PM
One expects hyperbole, demagoguery, and overall intellectual dishonesty from politicians.
In this column from the New York Times,
however, Paul Krugman goes even further: if you oppose cap and trade
legislation, you're guilty of treason against humanity. Yes, treason.
So, I sent the following email to Dr. Krugman, stating what regular
readers of mine will recognize as a common question:
re: Betraying the Planet
Dr. Krugman,
In your recent column, you criticized opponents of the "cap and trade"
legislation as committing "treason against the planet" and acting with
"immorality" and "irresponsibility". You go on to mention researchers
at MIT who are predicting a 9 degree rise in global temperatures by the
turn of the next century.
While you don't mention whether there is competing research detailing
various other potential scenarios, or what sets the particular research
you cite apart from competing climate models, I think a more central
question is this, based on your claims specifically against those in
opposition to the Waxman-Markey bill: precisely how many degrees would
that bill lower temperatures? One degree? 5 degrees? 0.1 degrees?
How, specifically, does passage of the cap-and-trade bill alter the
computer models on climate change? What percentage of arctic tundra
will now not defrost, what percentage of polar ice caps will not now
melt? How much less in "grave danger" are "future generations of
Americans" now in as a direct result of this legislation?
Failure to be able to answer this central, overarching question, seems
to be laden with the same hyperbole and "politics as usual" you find so
distasteful and immoral on the part of the dissenters.
Sincerely,
Dave Smith
Houston, TX