China, U.S. on a collision course with Earth

World leaders — and a throng of environmentalists and reporters — descended on Copenhagen last week for the 2009 Climate Conference convened by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And what a raucous show it was, with 1,000 black-masked “protesters” getting arrested after hurling bricks through windows and battling police.

Why? Who knows?

Sadly, the imagery played right into the hands of Sarah Palin, who wrote a mean-spirited opinion piece for the Washington Post, “Copenhagen’s political science,” on Dec. 9. Palin portrayed all who believe that humans are causing global warming as “radical environmentalists.”

Her repeated use of “radical” was a calculated swipe at the mainstream environmental movement, which embraces the notion that we must cut carbon dioxide emissions — and fast — or we may face a natural catastrophe the likes of which no humans have ever seen.

I was stunned that the Post’s editors allowed the term “radical” to go through. Radical environmentalism is a fringe movement that employs economic sabotage, sometimes called ecotage or monkeywrenching, to grab headlines and get its message across. Groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Army are the furthest thing from the Sierra Club or the National Wildlife Federation.

Anyway . . . I subscribe to the mainstream science that tells us that humans are causing global warming. Climate change is a simple notion, really. Sunlight warms the Earth. Much of that heat is radiated back into space. If it were not, the planet would be unable to sustain life because it would warm to untenable levels.

Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor in the atmosphere trap a certain amount of heat, which is a good thing. If too much of that heat radiated into space, the Earth would be a frozen planet rather than the life-giving, blue-green orb that it is.

The trouble is, if there are excessive amounts of carbon and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, too much heat gets trapped, and the Earth steadily warms (by a little more than a degree over the past century).