Global Warming and Michael Griffin

Submitted by Jeff Gottlieb on June 8, 2007 - 1:41am.

If you haven’t been following the news lately on global warming and NASA’s Michael Griffin, here’s a short update: Last week, after NASA issued a report claiming that we had 10 years before we passed the tipping point of global warming, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said on NPR "I have no doubt that ... a trend of global warming exists…I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with."

His comments received wide coverage because they challenged the findings of the report. After all, it’s one thing to deny that global warming is a threat, but it’s pretty remarkable when you undercut your own organization and colleagues on national radio. Once he realized this about a week later (I wonder if the glares around the office had anything to do with it), he apologized for voicing his personal opinions on global warming.

Rush Limbaugh used the opportunity on his June 6th show to knock the scientists and citizens who think global warming is a serious threat by equating them with the pre-scientific revolution actions of the Catholic Church. The line of pseudo-reasoning went as such: The Catholic Church excommunicated Copernicus for his heliocentric theory of the solar system because it did not fit with how they interpreted scripture just like (using Rush’s language) “The Church of Global Warming, led by the all-powerful priest Al Gore,” is “also out trying to suppress all other forms of disagreement to his point of view.” Rush tried to make the parallel that neither Copernicus nor the scientists supporting the theory of global warming had any facts, only observable data and only when the facts support the theories should we give credit where credit is due.

Thus, according to Rush, Copernicus is a regarded as a scientific hero and the overwhelming majority of scientists are considered crazy. He said, “On this global warming, nobody can prove it, not a soul can prove it, and yet how many people are out there accepting it for a whole bunch of psychological or religion-related reasons?” I’m not quite sure what he means by ‘psychological’ reasons, but I think he misses the point on ‘religion-related’ reasons. It continues to baffle me that people of faith think that God gave them the earth so they could abuse it. Even if you don’t agree with global warming at least take a Pascal’s wager and pretend that it does, so that if it turns out to be true, then you erred on the correct side.

I’m having a hard time deciding which pains me more: religious people who feel they’ve been given the power to trash creation, or one person’s ignorance to fallaciously equate (and bash) the 16th century Catholic Church’s reaction to Copernicus with the widespread consensus of scientists’ reaction to Michael Griffin’s comments denying the threat of global warming.

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