You may have read Keelin McDonell or Kriston Capps on the scandals at the Smithsonian Institution that forced Lawrence Small's resignation. Nevertheless, it was still somewhat shocking that when I went with Young Nick to the Natural History museum on Friday, we saw this on display:
In (sort of) defense of the museum, this panel was more-or-less part of a human evolution display that was marked with a disclaimer explaining that the science was outdated and that the museum was hoping to get a new exhibit up soon. Worst of all, I've now been forced to choose between posting this funny photo and the knowledge that people will seize upon it to try to discredit contemporary global warming science. For the record, here's a good place to start on the difference between the highly speculative "global cooling" scare of the 1970s and the much firmer, more widespread global warming consensus of today.
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Heads in the Sand
I should add a disclaimer that I'm a layman and understand the science poorly but the ideas are not exactly wrong. We actually are in a cold period if your scale is the last 500 million years or so. During most of the time, life has been on earth, it has been a lot warmer than it is now. The problem is the point gets misunderstood and we end up with a lot of the silly arguments that you often hear. Obviously just because the climate can and will change without the effect of pollution doesn't mean that humans don't have an effect or that we shouldn't worry about man made changes because these changes ccould happen without our interference. You might as well argue that shooting someone isn't so bad because in the long term, the person is going to be dead anyway.
Posted by Gabe | April 2, 2007 11:56 AM