One of the things that drew me into spending the past 15 months at Charleston.net was the experience of conceiving a relatively simple Web product and discovering that the system we had in place simply couldn't (or wouldn't) support it.
That product was this package from April 2005, which attempted to provide people with a non-narrative way to examine the global warming debate. In its original conception, the full-page grid was to have appeared online with extensive hypertext linking to the original sources behind the summaries. Anyway, the material (sans photographs and graphics) still sits on Charleston.net, where nobody ever sees it.
But I want people to see it, and talk about it, and consider it -- left, right and otherwise. Because while the most basic science is resolved (and was already resolved in 2005), much of what's most important to human beings remains unknown. What should we do about the anthropogenic contribution to global warming? I dunno.
Anyway, since I've got a blog, I can repost it here. And tag it. And get it search-indexed. Like this...
Global Warming
Making Sense of the Debate
April 18, 2005
For most of us, the problem with understanding the global warming story isn't the lack of information, it's the glut of it, much of it contradictory.Nor is it true that Americans just aren't paying attention. A majority of us say we're familiar with the global warming issue and are concerned about it.
Yet pollsters find an interesting trend when they examine our attitudes more closely. Not only are we unsure of what to make of global warming, we think others are, too. Half of us believe scientists still are divided over whether global warming is taking place.
So you might be surprised to learn that:
An overwhelming majority of scientists now believe the basic questions about global warming have been answered, and the answer to the question, "Is it real?" is a resounding "yes."
This scientific majority is reflected in the number of "peer-reviewed" articles (studies that are published only after other scientists vouch for the work's accuracy) that support global warming claims. An article in the January issue of the journal Science tallied the pro-vs.-con ratio at 928-to-0 in favor of global warming.
Despite this apparent consensus and the charged political rhetoric that surrounds the issue, scientists as a group are not saying that they know what the outcome of unmitigated global warming will be. Rather, science is telling us that the possible outcomes of global warming include catastrophic risks that nations might be wise to address.
Though claims such as "global warming is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" are collapsing under the weight of evidence, the existence of global warming doesn't automatically endorse the argument for Kyoto-style solutions.
Global warming requires interdisciplinary science, and no single science describes the whole picture. A single-source solution seems unlikely.
To help untangle the global warming debate, we've broken it down to its component parts as simply as we could, with a comparison chart on Page 4D.
Take a look for yourself and decide how you frame the issues.
Additional links in the package:
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