Does Climate Change Matter?

In response to an interview between Climate Skeptic and Esquire Middle East, which is the subject of Reader Opinion Day at the Air Vent. The questions posed by Esquire Middle East are so blatantly biased that disingenuous doesn't begin to cover it. 

My frustration with the whole issue is that the first assumption seems to be it is the only issue. And everything else gets spun according to the requirements of the one issue. For example, deforestation and pollution - it isn't the same problem. Lumping pollution in with the global warming agenda is validation that the warmists don't feel it is a problem worthy of its own analysis. There are far more effective ways to reverse the accumulation of plastic trash in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre that attempting to outlaw oil.

My issue isn't with whether global warming exists or doesn't exist. My issue is that in context, relative to other issues, it does not warrant the level of economic commitment and human suffering that the proposed solutions will entail. The purveyors of the issue wail that if we don't have an earth to live on, then everything else doesn't matter. That is a hysterical argument. If one is willing to accept a qualify of life accorded to the population of say, Afghanistan, then sure, the price can be paid. Energy has consequences, good and bad. Eliminating energy or satisfying ourselves with what can be produced through wind, solar and hydroelectric are unlikely outcomes. Since we simply are not going to find enough members of the global population to willingly go there, taking the argument to its emotional extremes is a waste of time.

In the scheme of things, where does this problem fall on the list of priorities including:

Pollution, environmental destruction, amelioration and reversal of the current state;
Disease and health care, and better delivery systems to populations lacking basic care and prevention;
Food, clean water, population health and nutrition (which is related to disease prevention, and axis of health care);
Human rights - everything from genocide to female excoriation;
Affordable and available energy, since it is the foundation of productivity (without means of economic productivity, how will populations ever achieve self determination)?


I toss these out as examples, not as a comprehensive list. The bottom line is, there are many problems.

Really global warming is only one of many quality-of-life issues, and given the relative return on investment, a pretty poor expenditure of resources in my opinion. Of course, these other issues are not so well packaged into a scientific formula, holy computer models with 4 color charts, or movies and books with emotionally compelling titles. Which is perhaps why this group continues to be so short-sighted. We find the packaging of global warming/cooling/climate change to be attractive so we buy that to the exclusion of other, more beneficial products. It's the American way.