193 Al Gore: Give the guy a break

Some people are making light of Al Gore's global warming warning speech yesterday during NY's terrible cold weather. But I think we all know that isn't how global warming is judged. Here a day, there a day. Here a century, there a century.

But we also know, or should, no one knows the reason, or whether the weather is just a continuation of the melting of the glaciers that used to cover Ohio. So I was a bit unnerved to see an item in the University of Illinois LAS News Fall 2003 (arrived yesterday--global slowing I suppose) that said on p. 18,

"Despite the dramatic climate changes in store, most people still don't know what causes them, according to a recent international public-opinion study by LAS sociologist Steven Brechin. Only 15% of Americans surveyed correctly identified the burning of fossil fuels as the primary culprit in global warming--fewer than in Cuba (17%), Mexico (26%) and most developing nations.”

Possibly we have more educated people than those countries? Who or what are we blaming for all those other periods in history when temperatures were rising and falling? And why is a sociologist doing a study on global warming? There is no consensus among scientists about fossil fuels, so I'm surprised that social scientists are so sure. Well, no, I'm not surprised.