Birch Stand and Global Warming

The broad stand of birches about a mile east of Copper Harbor, down the Slaughters Lake Road and then down the Horseshore Harbor Road, has always been one of my favorite places in the area. My family (Miranda Davis, Marsha, Logan, Drew, and I) and my brother Don took a drive out that way in early January. I took this shot from the top of my Dad's pick-up as we slowly worked our way back toward CH from the Horseshoe Harbor entrance. You can see that conditions were rather unusual for this neck of the woods at this time of year, as I have discussed before. There was panic about the lack of winter business back then, but things have changed by now a great deal. A long cold spell with lots of snow brought the snowmobilers and skiers and cross-country skiers, and the CH businesses that stay open in winter had a decent second half of the winter tourist season.

But just this very day, March 16, 2007, the news came out that 2006 was the warmest year in recorded history on planet Earth. Do you think that human industrial activity is creating this warming and that it is leading to disaster? The belief in these two concepts appears, from my view, to be spreading and strengthening. Yet I noticed on this very day as well that the Hoover Institution, which is relatively politically conservative but still generally sound (in my judgment), has an article out that claims that global warming is NOT as significant nor as terrifyingly problematic as we have been led to believe by hundreds of reputable scientists and scholars. This is all related, as you see, to the Problem of Disagreement, which my book of philosophy is about. It can be found at:

http://www.msu.edu/user/kilpela/disagree.htm

My opinion. I remain undecided, but as with many such matters, material and spiritual, we've got to make the best guess on the best evidence we have, and I don't think we should wager that global warming is not a significant danger and the result of our industrial activity with what we know so far. The evidence might not be fully persuasive that global warming is real and a threat, but should we take a chance that it isn't? Right now, I think the probabilities suggest that we should do something to curb the activities that appear to be causing global warming. You might want to chase down a review or two about Richard Posner's (the fascinating and philosophically "pragmatic" American judge) book about thinking about the risks of potential catastrophes and doing something about them. I can't remember the exact title, but by searching on "Posner" and "catastrophe", you should get to a number of reviews.

Thanks to all for visiting my blogs. I hope you find reasons to keep coming back.