Kudos to The Seattle Times and reporter Sandi Doughton for an extensive report on climate change that cuts through the bullshit. Dominating the front page of the Sunday paper, this headline and subhead:
The truth about global warming
Scientists overwhelmingly agree: The Earth is getting warmer at an alarming pace, and humans are the cause — no matter what the skeptics say.
In a nice touch, the main article highlights some initially skeptical climate scientists who’ve been swayed by the weight of the evidence. “The most important thing to realize is that most scientists didn’t originally believe in global warming,” said science historian Spencer Weart, author of The Discovery of Global Warming and director of the Center for History of Physics. “They were dragged — reluctant step by step — by the facts.”
Gotta love the concluding quote too, also from Weart: “The fact that so many scientists think it’s likely a truck is heading for us means that the last thing we want to do is close our eyes and lie down in the road.”
There’s also a nice set of “Setting the Record Straight” sidebars that debunk common arguments against climate change: that sun activity might be the cause, that the urban heat island effect is giving a distorted view of surface temperatures, that satellite and balloon data don’t correlate with surface data, and that the infamous “hockey stick” graph has been discredited.
Faithful Grist readers won’t find much new in the pieces, but one hopes Seattle Times readers will.
