We nearly missed the second in the National Post series on The Deniers, a cherry-picking exercise in which the libertarian Larry Solomon tries to suggest that there are credible scientists standing up against the global scientific consensus that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is urgently in need of attention.
Solomon’s latest example of an admirable denier is Dr. Richard Tol (whose photo, inset, was taken from Tol’s own website). It turns out that Tol, in fact is far from a “denier” and mainly studies the way the scientific and political community measure and predict the effects of climate change, as in this, his most recent scientific article. But, oddly enough, in their campaign of climate change denial, Solomon and the National Post neglect to include Tol’s own final position:
This conclusion, however, does not necessarily undermine the ethical and political economic reasons for supporting international collective action on climate change.
That’s a far cry from the Post headline shouting that global warming “has benefits.”
Then there is this statment in a 2004 paper co-authored by Tol:
“A change of existing climate conditions caused by the continued emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from anthropogenic [human] activities will lead to higher global mean temperatures …”
So if by “denier,” Solomon means a scientist who accepts that climate change is happening and humans are to blame, then we are in full agreement with Tol’s “denier” status.
