Here is the first of my posts on global warming.

— Lon Mendelsohn

Why is global warming a liberal/conservative issue? It seems to me that like any other scientific question, it should be pretty much non-political. Conservatives don’t have to line up on the side of big business/multinational corporations on this issue. The primary source of scientific articles that I have seen on global warming (and there are articles representing all positions in the spectrum — from “it’s a big problem” to “it’s not a problem at all”) have been published in premier scientific journals like Nature and Science. The predominant view taken in these articles has been that global warming is a significant problem and that it is caused primarily by an increase in greenhouse gases (CO2) caused by human activity. The data published in these articles are devoid of political opinion; in fact, the same data are used to support opposing scientific viewpoints. It seems to me that the advocates of both extremes are pretty heavily biased. At one end you’ve got the tree-hugging environmentalists (I admit that I am slightly more sympathetic with this position) who seem to desire massive regulatory systems and place a higher value on the environment than on the people that live in it, and at the other end you have the big business corporate types who seem to desire little or no restraint on their activities regardless of their impact on the planet and society at large. I think that there is probably some middle-of-the-road position that we’re missing. I mean, what exactly does the Bible have to say about environmental issues? Nothing? Something direct? Something tangential but applicable? Does the creation mandate address environmental issues? I think that these and other questions are what we need to look at rather than taking a knee-jerk liberal/conservative approach to the issue.

— Lon Mendelsohn