Global warming needs proper diagnosis before spending trillions

The problem with the global-warming debate is that too many people are forming their opinions by listening to the likes of Al Gore and Rush Limbaugh. Few are reading the actual science. That is a shame, since a summary of the consensus of thousands of climate scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a free download from the Internet. It is not a hard read, but most folks would rather let someone else do their thinking for them.

Much has been published about how the right is guilty of cherry-picking scientific data to support its preconceived political views. But the fact is that the left is equally as guilty. For example, in his movie "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore says sea levels will rise 20 feet in the next decade. The IPCC report says between 1 and 2 feet in the next 100 years. That isn't the only exaggeration of the scientific consensus in Gore's movie.

You don't treat cancer with Band-Aids, and you don't treat minor cuts and scrapes with chemotherapy. Before we spend trillions of dollars that we don't have, before we put in policies such as cap-and-trade that will raise the prices of everything we buy, we better be sure we have properly diagnosed the problem. The way to do that is by understanding what scientists are saying and not what some wild-eyed politician is saying on either the left or right.

BARNEY HARTLINE, Cape Girardeau