Global Warming: Not Just for Polar Bears Anymore

The AP has picked up this story that past episodes of global warming have been linked to mass extinctions in the past. They picked it up because some new studies of this have been released, though older studies have been written about in the science press here and here.

So there seems to be a range of opinion. On the one hand, we have the "global warming is a myth" line, as espoused by the extraction industries and the Bush Administration (until very recently, now it's "global warming is real, but not our problem"). In the middle, the position that global warming is a problem, but we can live with it. On the other hand, the position that global warming will probably trigger another mass extinction.

I suspect the truth is somewhere between choices #2 and #3. I don't buy the "global warming is crap" argument, because it seems that the argument originates from the extraction industries, which are using the same strategy of scientific muddling that the tobacco industry used for decades to stave off regulations. Come to think of it, that's the same strategy that Detroit has used to fight safety and pollution efforts (until they had to adopt them, then, if you paid attention to their ads, you'd have thought that Ford, et al., dreamed up those ideas).

If we move with alacrity to combat global warming and the nay-sayers are right, then we will have suffered a lot of economic dislocation in shifting to cleaner energy sources, though there are no doubt some serious health benefits for doing so. If we do nothing but wring our hands because "it is too hard", as the Bush Administration and the extraction industries want us to do, then there will be another mass extinction, possibly within the lifetimes of some children now alive, and humanity, along with >90% of the other species on this planet, will die off.

Seems to be a no-brainer of a choice. Which is why the Bush Administration will choose the wrong one.