Why are conservatives such as Charles Krauthammer so reluctant to accept the possibility that our industrial and automotive carbon dioxide burden might ultimately contribute to global warming (“Skeptics not welcome at global-warming summit,” Op-Ed, Dec. 8)?
There is no dispute over the mechanism of the “greenhouse” effect through which atmospheric CO2 might theoretically contribute to a temperature increase; what is in dispute is whether this has actually happened so far and the extent to which it will happen in the future. Prudence would seem to dictate active programs to encourage energy efficiency so that in the future we release less CO2.
Yet Mr. Krauthammer, for one, refuses to countenance this ounce of prevention, lest, by cutting back on energy consumption, we “wreck the good life we’ve developed over 200 years”–a patently silly notion, given that improvements in cars, furnaces and a host of other devices clearly allow us to maintain standards of living while burning less C02-releasing fossil fuels. Does Mr. Krauthammer seriously put forth the notion that we are poorer today because new refrigerators consume less electricity than those of 20 years ago?
