Global Warming??
Overlooking the Complexity of this Controversial Phenomenon;*
A Non-Heated Discussion on Global Warming

0.   Introduction

	In this paper let me begin with a preamble; then briefly examine the arguments and evidence for global warming; examine how we move from a balanced transcendental suspension to a definitive, responsible state of asymmetric response; investigate to what extent a balanced view should be presented (e.g., in the media) and, lastly, look at the complexity embedded in this controversy (with some reference to how it has been played out in Australian Politics). (0)

1.   Preamble

	Recently, I have read two articles in a similar vein on the topic of global warming but from evidence of a conspiratorial point of view. Both articles boldly comment to the effect that there are parallels between the tobacco wars fought out in various courts and the assertion that a number of business organizations with a heavy investment in carbon polluting industries have conspired together to undermine climate research and throw doubt on the reality of global warming. (1)

	To begin this discussion paper let me quote extensively from the first article whilst backing up many of its points by reference to a second article in a series of footnotes. These two articles respectively are:

Stephan Frais: Climate conspiracy? On parallels between the tobacco wars and global warming. Published in The Australian Financial Review; Friday 27 June 2008; Review, p. 9. This author is a freelance journalist.

David McKnight: The climate change smokescreen; published in The Sydney Morning Herald, August 2-3 2008, p.31. This author is an associate professor at the University of NSW (reseaching media and public relations). He is the author of Beyond Right and Left: New Politics And The Culture Wars. (2)

	Picture it! We are in the Eskimo village of Kivalina which sits on the tip of an eight mile barrier reef on the west coast of Alaska. Fierce storms are ripping apart the shores. Residents report sinkholes in nearby riverbanks. Despite emergency erosion-control efforts, the crumbling coast threatens the village’s school and electric plant. In 2006, the US Army Corps of Engineers concluded that Kivalina would be uninhabitable in as little as 10 years, and that relocating its approximately 400 residents would cost at least $US95 million. Global climate change, the Corps report said, had shortened the season during which the sea was frozen, leaving the community more vulnerable to winter storms. (3)
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*Latest version of paper: www.homestead.com/noelshomepage/noelshomepage3.html
	However, in February, two lawyers with experience in Tobacco litigation, Berman and Susman, and a number of others, in the US federal court, on the behalf of this village of Kivilina, have filed a suit against 24 oil, coal and electric companies claiming that their emissions are partially responsible for the coastal destruction in Kivilina. More important, the suit also accuses eight firms (American Electric Power, BP America, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy and Southern Company) of conspiring to cover up the threat of man-made climate change, in much the same way the tobacco industry tried to conceal the risks of smoking – by using a series of think tanks and other organizations to falsely sow public doubt in an emerging scientific consensus. This strategy to foster doubt is very effective”, says Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history and science studies at the University of California at San Diego; a scholar who is also writing a book on this subject of comparing the similar methods that the tobacco industry and the fossil fuel industries have used to challenge unwelcome scientific evidence. Indeed, if one were to do a comparison in the form of a meta-search of the creditable, peer-reviewed research versus articles in the media on this same topic, there are very few instances of research, if any, that doesn’t support a non-accelerated global warming in comparison to media reports where this degree of consensus is often watered down by these campaigns of doubt directly or indirectly paid for by these massive carbon polluters. (4)

	It would appear that history is repeating itself for those who know no history. Here we have an interesting situation where, as must be learnt by all politicians, to be guilty is one thing, but, to cover up is an even worse sin. This second charge of conspiracy arguably eliminates the need for a judge to determine how much greenhouse-gas production – from refining fossil fuels and burning it to produce energy – is acceptable. “You’re not asking the court to evaluate the reasonableness of the conduct, Bernman says. “You’re asking a court to evaluate if somebody conspired to lie.” Monetary damages to Kivilina need not be sourced exclusively to the defendants emissions; they would derive from bad-faith efforts to prevent the enactment of public measures that might have slowed the warming. (5)

	This group of lawyers is not alone. The Union of Concerned Scientists,  an environmental advocacy group, has accused ExxonMobil of adopting the cigarette manufacturer’s strategy of covertly establishing front groups, promoting writers who exaggerate uncertainties in the science and improperly cultivating ties within government. The oil company, it says, has “funneled approximately $US16 million to carefully chosen organizations that promote disinformation on global warming”. (6)

	We are also presented with a potentially interesting legal twist. What if all these conspirators were correct? Indeed, the acceptance of a conspiracy to mislead is based upon the presupposition that global warming is a fact. A fact overwhelmingly supported by the evidence. Just what is that evidence? Just when does a fact become a fact and not a mere possibility or likely possibility? Let me now turn to the arguments and evidence that might support this contention, as a trend, that (an accelerated) global warming is a self-evident ‘fact’ (without disputing the additional fact that within this accelerated trend some years overall might also be relatively cooler)? (7)

2.    Arguments and Evidence for Global Warming.

	The simple statement ‘that there is global warming’ breaks down into a series of arguments along the following lines, and, each of these arguments in this sequence has to be judged as true for this simplistic complexity, namely, that there is global warming, can be judged to be a currently true statement of fact. These arguments, more or less, could be expressed in the following propositions. 

1.	Increased green house gas emissions are responsible for higher temperatures.
2.	Greenhouse gases are increasing.
3.	That increase is mainly the result of human activity.
4.	That (accelerated) increase has resulted from a greater human carbon footprint.
5.	Therefore, (an accelerated) global warming as a phenomenon is true. (8)

Some of the science behind these arguments along with supporting evidence for this claim of ‘global warming’ can be found examined in an article by Freeman Dyson in an article published in The Australian Financial Review titled: What price the climate? In this article the author challenges a number of prevailing ideas about protecting the environment. In this article there is a graph which shows us that green house gases are increasing (and accelerating) (from 1958 till the present). He states that there is a seasonal variation of about six parts per million. Concentrations having increased from about 315 parts per million till a current 385 parts per million. This yearly wiggle in the graph indicates the differential amount of carbon that is absorbed in the summer seasons between the two hemispheres by virtue of the fact that most of the land surface is in the northern hemisphere and that most of the carbon is taken up by growing vegetation, and, returned each winter to the atmosphere by dying and decaying vegetation. Obviously, the past and, more so, current carbon emissions are not being fully digested by natural systems of absorption. Hence an ongoing accumulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, etc. In a direct proportion to such gas concentrations, world temperatures have been shown to rise, indeed, the last 12 of the past 13 years have been the hottest since 1850 (when regular temperature records began). So, increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, increasing global temperatures, therefore, seem to be inextricably linked! Climate modeling, and its ongoing refinement, has also been shown to reinforce this conclusion. Indeed, weak spots in climate modeling have been eliminated one by one, and, commentators who believe there is no connection have been retreating to smaller and smaller islands of resistance. (9)

	In the life-world of science, as in all other institutionalized life-worlds, we might expect a certain degree of peer-group pressure for conformity to exert itself along with the additional weight of traditional authority, etc. However, this myth (that science only supports the ruling paradigm) and many other myths about a ‘so-called global warming’ have been progressively demolished. Evidence appears to overwhelmingly support this proposition that an increasing carbon footprint has increasing global warming following on in its wake. (10)

	At what point does evidence become truly evident? How do we go from taking a ‘balanced point of view’ to the ‘asymmetry of an adequate response’? (11)

3.    From the Appearance of Evidence to the Evidence of Appearance

	To make a judgment, I have claimed, elsewhere, that we must first pass through the neutrality of the overall transcendental suspension. But, given such a balanced point of view, how do we then move on to the asymmetry of an adequate response, a response that is proper, appropriate and valid? (12)

I have argued that we escape the paralysis of the suspension through a “suspension of the suspension, etc.” However, surely, moving from one suspension to another is merely trading one balanced perspective for some other if not the same (albeit from a meta-point of view and its inevitable re-treatment back to a similar or same object-language)!  (13)

	Here we have a conundrum – from a period of ongoing balance to a period of asymmetric response arrived at through the process of judgment and its realization of judgmental value. Seen as productive of value, I believe, is a clue as to how we might resolve this puzzle. Not only should the phenomenologist take a hermeneutical turn but they should also entertain an existential turn! Metaphorically we speak about the ‘weight of evidence’. This weight of evidence could well be seen as ‘unbalancing’ the balance of the suspension. The existential aspect (in the hermeneutic circle of comprehension) coming about because there is always a surplus of value realized in any process of synthesis, appreciation, judgment, engagement, responsiveness, etc. Between input in and output out there is always a difference, a residue of value that cannot be reductively reduced to the mere inputs themselves within that mere process itself. This residue is the existential dimension, and, it is this dimension that breaks the suspension, albeit through the suspension of the suspension (of the suspension, etc.). Evidence is one aspect of this complex phenomenon of judgmental value. Complex by virtue of the fact that truth is not just to be experienced as a factual experience. Equally, judgmental value is not to be seen as just evidential in orientation (since it is also can be, and is on a deeper level of transcendental function, lexical as a pre-essential identifier, aesthetical as an essential state of unity or integrity, ethical in a de-ontological mode, pragmatical or useful through possessing utility in a certain apposite context, potentially possible in a hermeneutical mode from the meta-textual perspective of a genre as well as, in some sense or other, as factual). Let me briefly examine this existential dimension, especially in regard to this phenomenal experience of evidence. (14)

	A first point to note is that it is not the existence of this surplus of existential value that is important, since each and every process of judgment is productive of the same, but the relative quantity and quality of this surplus! I.e., its comparative or relative value is more important. Furthermore, it is this relative weight that attaches or does not attach to a certain proposition that allows it to create an adequate level of response. Within a certain system of propositions (not necessarily meant in any great formal sense) that some propositions are ‘more equal than others’. In such a context some propositions or set/s of propositions as a textual component finds itself being experienced as more adequate, or more beautiful, more ethical, more useful, more probable, more factual than some other counter-proposition or set of counter-propositions within that overall textualization as a representation of the same. A ‘representation that is directly engaged and not to be thought of as something corresponding to the way things are thought to be in some so-called ‘external world’. In this we have a direct representative understanding of that which, currently through our intentional focus, we are existentially engaged with (in keeping with the nature of the ordered existence/s actually being engaged directly in our phenomenologically directed investigations). In this it is the ‘richness’ of our engagement (both ‘quantitatively’ and qualitatively’) that is at issue. This richness proportionally assisting us in our facilitation through this World-of-Life. Our passage through the world finding less resistance when we are in conformity with it, i.e., when our vision is in some form of a direct conformity with the way things truly are. Evidence, in this frame of reference, can be experienced as a form of relief or facility, a diminished sense of resistance, etc. In this comparative light it is given a sense of weight which in a factual perspective is experience as evidential. However, on deeper levels of experiential analysis (be that phenomenal, hermeneutical and/or existential in orientation) such an experience is given a richer complexion through its association with other ordered forms of value such as its identificational aptness, aesthetical integrity, etc., and, that collectively such deeper inputs more richly colour our experience of the evidential. Hence our metaphorical use of such expressions as fitting, evident, weighty, obvious, self-apparent, etc., etc. (15)

	In the ecological life-world, global warming is now treated as a ‘fact’ if not as a ‘self-evident fact’. It is ‘true’ that there is a growing scientific consensus in this regard. Moreover, it is now well and truly embedded in our interpretative matrix to the extent that any and every melting glacier or iceberg is wrongly seen as evidence of global warming, etc. In a photo, a few polar bears on a small iceberg becomes interpreted as ‘evidence’ of global warming along with a rapid shrinking of the artic icecap. To what extent should we be skeptical and to what extent should we be not skeptical? (16)

	It would be useful here to draw a distinction between methodological doubt or methodological skepticism and dogmatic doubt or dogmatic skepticism. A transcendental phenomenologist, e.g., critically invokes the former, whereas, in complete contrast, a dogmatist is a person who unwisely commits or over-commits to the uncritically exercised bias of a certain position (or under-commits to the critically exercised evidentially arrived at bias of that same situation). Dogmatism can be either or both assertive or skeptical. In this over-committed global warmers are just as dogmatic as over-committed global warming deniers. Should we make a distinction between commitment and over-commitment (and under-commitment)? To what extent is there a difference of motivation here, and, to what extent is there a motivational difference between over-committed global warmers and over-committed global warming deniers? This is certainly something to be debated. However, let me suggest that the ability to entertain the opposite to your position through the exercise of an adequate overall transcendental suspension allows you to find a level of commitment hopefully in conformity with reality-as-engaged. On the other hand, I would like to tentatively propose that over-committed deniers are generally conservatives (or perhaps, more correctly, conservative-conservatives with a fear of change) whereas, in contrast, over-committed assertors are more likely to be revolutionaries or radicals (or perhaps, more correctly, radical-revolutionaries who have a fear of stasis and a desire for a degree of rapid change in attitudes, etc., that may well not be adequate to the task to hand)? How do we account for the motivation or motivational complexity that promotes certain Australians like the journalist Andrew Bolt, or Cardinal Pell, John Howard (ex-P.M.) et al to be global warming deniers in contrast to other Australians in, say, the early environmental movements, that have for years been preaching global warming, as voices in a proverbial wilderness so to speak, when it was hardly an earnest or fashionable topic of debate let alone of general conversation? And in these conservative-revolutionary wars (of culture/s) how do we discriminate (and existentially differentiate) between an existentially oriented form of commitment and a non-existentially oriented form of over-commitment or under-commitment? Perhaps one could say, on one hand, that the lack of an evident overall transcendental suspension, read a lack of methodological skepticism, is evidence of bad-faith in this regard, whereas, on the other hand, a non-receptivity to the relative weight of an adequate, existentially derived body of evidence is also indicative of a corresponding degree of bad-faith. And these considerations now bring me to examine to what extent balance should be present in our public and private debates on these topics, some of which are certainly more crucial than others, and which demand a proper scrutiny and an existential authenticity in response along with a serious degree of critical re-evaluation and ongoing re-appreciation; especially in political forums and in our media as well in our other institutions like our legal fraternities and educational facilities, etc? (17)

4.    What is a Balanced Perspective in this Debate ‘On Global Warming?’?

	In a debate, a balance is given to the presentation of both sides of the topic chosen. In the demand for balance in our media, a position traditionally claimed by sincere, serious and considerable sections of the media, to what extent should such a balance be given temporarily or permanently to either side in this debate over the asserted imputation of global warming? Do we have a comparison here to recent legal developments in the United States of America in the ongoing saga between evolutional science and creationism where it has been ruled that the latter should not be taught in science classes in schools as a ‘science’. Indeed, does this demand for balance necessarily imply an absolute balance between the two or more sides in a debate, in each and every debate that may or may not deserve such balance? Should the accepted fact that ‘the world is round’ be debated equally with those few insistent souls who feel they must forever assert that ‘the world is flat’? Or, should the ‘Earth is the center of the world’ be equally debated with the ‘Sun is the center of the Solar System’ when, obviously, once, not so long ago, certain religious powers insisted on the former. An obvious comparison has already been drawn between the debates over global warming and the tobacco industry. Initially some people ran with the line that cigarettes were good for your health. Other people opposed this counter-intuitive position right from the beginning when tobacco was first introduced to the Western world – tobacco smoke immediately irritates the lungs and chimney places are not clean; how could tobacco be seen as healthy? Well, it does act as a drug on the nervous system; relaxing certain neural pathways and stimulating others. In time, with much controversy along the way tobacco was re-considered as possibly harmful. The tobacco industry in the 20th century muddied these waters of opinion by casting doubt, no doubt easily seized upon by the addicted smoker as an excuse not to directly face the reality that smoking ‘is’ harmful to one’s health and not just ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’. Now, it is beyond question and this ‘fact’ can be seen depicted on cigarette packets, e.g. In the global warming debate we are moving from ‘maybe’ to ‘it is the case that world temperatures are accelerating from excess man-made greenhouse gas emissions’. However, even though scientific consensus is overwhelmingly in the affirmative, a few contrarian skeptics can still sow enough doubt for the non-scientific contrarian to be convinced otherwise and form the belief that global warming is not a ‘fact’ and/or is false. On the other hand, it is a ‘fact’ that current scientific consensus is strongly in the affirmative on this topic (regardless of whether in the goodness of time these scientists will be proved right or wrong on this issue). To state otherwise is to form a false belief since well-conducted meta-studies show this to be the case, namely, most studies show evidence of global warming. One must wonder about what motivates people to chose the losing side in a debate that over time has been so well researched that if they were gambling folk would find the odds considerably increasing against them. Perhaps we have here an ingrained personality trait where fearful conservatives cling to stasis whilst revolutionaries fear the existence of stasis. Given these mixtures of the rational and irrational how is one to go about conducting our investigations in an adequate critical manner? In these types of consideration, what meta-rules should we have for conducting such debates, i.e., how do we determine to what extent balance is existentially authentic to entertain, and, to what extent balance need not be existentially entertained? Just how do we determine whether truth is being directly realized through our conformity with reality and/or through the fiat of political power and its dissemination of an official position that may or may not bear much resemblance to how thing truly are?  (18)

	A first rule that we might adopt could be, to the effect, that when a certain position no longer is productive of an existential richness in comparative value that it should then be relegated in deference to a situation that appears to be productive of a much greater degree of evidential support and value. E.g., ‘that the world is round’ is a fundamental premise that supports the infrastructure of global positioning satellites. On the other hand, that the world is experientially flat is a premise that supports our traveling a short distance between place a and place b. Let us chose, in either regard, or in all regards, that which is found to be more useful for us.  (19)

	I would like to propose a second rule, that when an appellation x is given to a certain discipline or apparent discipline then deeper, if not deepest, the fullest possible genre conventions associated with that appellation should apply and be made to successfully apply, i.e., within the level of expectations associated with that appellation. E.g., if ‘creationism’ were a real science it would conform to the genre expectations associated in depth with the pursuit and practice of the scientific endeavour, moreover, it should actually find itself situated within and not completely outside such a body of performative practice. (20)

	A third rule, I would like to propose, is that when a particular asymmetry in judgment is disproportionately productive of comparative value, in the form of an existential surplus, then the non-valuable counter-aspects should no longer be treated in any other form as equal except in a methodological form of skepticism until, of course, such a time a counter-propositional position were to become comparatively more productive in terms of a re-comparative richness of value. E.g., there was a time when the assertion that ‘the world is flat and the center of the world’ had a certain degree of religious and non-religious value greater than that counter-assertion we now hold to today (namely, that the world is not flat and not the center of the world as we have come to know it). (21)

	No doubt other rules or rulings might be able to be insisted upon. However, as a general rule we might consider the extremes of under-commitment and over-commitment as equally suspect since our engagement with the world generally demands an asymmetry of response to be determined within the bounds of commitment  (rather than at the levels of over-commitment or under-commitment!)! (22)

	In the light of the above how should we now treat this debate over an imputed global warming, i.e., an accelerated elevation in overall world temperatures (be that a fraction of a degree over a year or a matter of a few degrees over a few decades)? (23)

	Quite simply, (existential considerations of) context should determine the degree to which balance should or should not be introduced into our presentation/s, and, the degree to which its application/s should be exercised. If we are investigating this proposition as a controversial topic then balance should be adopted until the weight of evidence is demonstrated to that extent its importation is no longer necessary. On the other hand, if we are demonstrating global warming in an adequate scientific context then on pre-suppositional grounds that science should be conducted on this basis of a prior support for that thesis. Of course, if our findings were to prove insufficient to make that type of determination, or, should prove to be contrary to that type of position, then by all means we should careful reassess that pre-suppositional basis in the light of that new counter-fashionable evidence. On the other hand, if a certain weight of evidence is strongly evident then positional balance in that regard is now pointless! That we have here a wasted exercise, certainly not one currently rich in an expected surplus of potential value (other than that already demonstrated). Hence, as a debate, by all means insist on a sense of a balanced perspective. However, in the existential exercise of an adequate response, let us disrupt all pretensions for a balanced sense of perspective and instead insist on an adequate presentation of the evidence and an authentic presentation of that representation of reality as currently found to be evident in those asymmetric terms of reference! (24)

	In other words, if our exercise of balance or non-balance is a relatively fruitless exercise, then let us switch to the opposite alternative, or, if that too fails to deliver a commensurate degree of surplus value to that degree of value invested in that enterprise then let us suspend or cease those investigation altogether! Indeed, once global warming has been adequately established as a fact, as it has, then let us move on to more profitable topics like its minimization or reversal on a global scale, and/or, how we might adapt and learn to cope with its adverse and non-adverse impacts on local climate, etc. In this regard, let us note that the apparent inauthenticity of global warming deniers (much like holocaust deniers) is such that that type of exponent has to force together so-called evidence and authoritative statements needed to apparently support their contra-fashionable positions, whereas, innovative counter-fashionable revolutionaries may well eventually gain our acceptance of their positions if the value of such positions is comparatively richer than prevailing notions of how things should stand to be interpreted in this world. Consequently, a deconstructive pressure is more easily and successfully applied to relatively defective constructions regardless of their current fashionable or counter-fashionable status. However, paradigm shifts are not easy affairs to orchestrate and do necessitate successful strategies of political dissemination (a process that is best conducted on an incremental basis in the hope that some form of re-self-organization spontaneously occurs eventually). (25)

	How might these rules, observations and insights apply to the current political debate in Australia? (26)

5.    What is the Current Political Impact of ‘Global Warming’ in Australia?

	Obviously, the Labor Party in Australia is officially committed to the reality of global warming, although not without a few skeptics and with disputes over what needs to be done when and how. On the other hand, the Conservative side of the political spectrum has only recently stated a position that recognizes the reality of global warming although not wholeheartedly as witnessed in the linguistic somersaults performed by its current leader in opposition aided or undermined by various other commentators also passing different or differing comments on the same topic. Furthermore, differences in strategy appear to reveal a relative lack of an overall commitment on the conservative side of politics. With perhaps some seventy percent or so of the population in agreement that global warming is a reality we now have to live with a sense of urgency that, quite naturally and reasonably, has come to pervade this topic. In environmentally aware individuals, a sense of doing our duty has come to the fore. On the other hand, conservative forces appear to downplay these effects of global warming and insist on a more pragmatic approach. E.g., there has been an insistence that our key polluting industries should not suffer at the expense of the world market where polluters in other countries have set no deadlines and values as to when and how various forms of a carbon tax should come into play in their respective economies or how, by other means, an environmental protectionism can be successfully promoted. However, the presented exclusivity of this argument is a misnomer since a number of other forces are already coming into play as well. For a start, a deontological approach need not be at loggerheads with a pragmatic position (as falsely argued and promoted by certain conservative politicians). In this same regard the Labor party need not accept their characterization as a party hell-bent on reversing climate change at the expense of the so-called economy (since in various reports, climate change without amelioration is also seen as having a considerable adverse financial cost). Then, apparent political non-commitment to treaties like Kyoto in countries like China and USA is being ‘under-mined’ by grass root organizations (as in China, e.g.), by numerous business organizations wanting to look eco-friendly and carbon neutral, by city councils (like New York, e.g.,) and state governments (like California, e.g.), etc. Furthermore the so-called ‘first cab off the rank’ is not going to be Australia with areas like Europe committed to reaching a target of 20% of its electricity supply in the form of renewable energy, and, France which has a much reduced carbon footprint through its heavy support for a nuclear industry which produces more than 80% of its electric power. Obviously, either painting the other political opponent as a mere pragmatist and irresponsible or as a mere dogmatist and irresponsible, etc., is itself seriously irresponsible if both parties were to genuinely believe in an acceleration of global warming along with its predicted adverse consequences and a need now to act, albeit individually and collectively, locally, nationally and internationally! Arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, while it is sinking, is not a commendable project to either contemplate or support! In this regard, it is time for us to move on, wholeheartedly accept this proposition of global warming, and, seriously entertain the nature, causes and consequences associated with this phenomenon (along with necessary processes and goals of textual rectification, obtainable re-normalization, etc., available to us that can be promoted both in this country and overseas!)! (27)

6.   Some Provisional Conclusions?

	In this paper, in my Preamble, I examined a conspiratorial tendency among certain major industries dealing in fossil-fuels. If they thought it worthwhile to disseminate misinformation about global warming then perhaps we should become more alert to the implications of its actual possibility! Where there is smoke perhaps there is fire (and where there be fire there be smoke!). If they are worried, perhaps we should be even more worried? (28)

	One conclusion we can draw from the above is that the legal world is now of the general opinion that scientific understanding in this regard is no longer just an opinion but a consensus held by most scientists; that global warming is with us and something we will have to seriously deal with whether we wish to face this problem or not! (29)

	In other words scientists, more or less, hold the following to be all true, namely:	

    1.    Increased green house gas emissions are responsible for higher temperatures.
    2.   Greenhouse gases are increasing.
    3.   That increase is mainly the result of human activity.
    4.   That (accelerated) increase has resulted from a greater human carbon footprint.
    5.   Therefore, (an accelerated) global warming as a phenomenon is true. (30)

	Evidence to this effect has arisen through the cooperation of various scientific disciplines in a scientific life-world. That existential surplus of value is flooding over into other life-worlds such as the ecological life-world, and v.v., and, into the worlds of publishing, political debate, the legal fraternity (dealing with environmental compensation and legislation, etc.), etc. (31)

	That, given the comparatively less productive nature of current opposition to the positive assertion and imputation of global warming, environmental debate is now better served in an arena that operates with just that presupposition being adopted and with our moving on to individually and collectively confront the issues of this form of environmental damage. On the other hand, when it is necessary to re-demonstrate this evidence to-hand, namely, that global warming is both a fact and a problem, then let us re-visit this controversy in order to re-establish an affirmation of this premise should that need re-continue to be the case (since it might be the case one day, through natural shifts in climate equilibria and/or through our own initiatives that global warming could reverse or be reversed). (32)

	Methodological skepticism is to be preferred and promoted at the expense of a dogmatic skepticism. At the same time, a process of existential commitment is to be authentically emulated rather than non-existential programs of over-commitment and/or under-commitment. In other words let us maintain the adequate exercise of adequately pre-informed overall transcendental suspensions along with an unbiased awareness of evidential asymmetries should they be found thematized in the course of our research (in and through the course of our investigations and/or their re-evaluations). (33)

	That current political opinion in Australia seems to be catching up with current scientific consensus to the effect that we should both pragmatically and deontologically set about a minimization, reduction and possible reversal of the causes and consequences of this worrying phenomenon of an accelerated global warming. Furthermore, in this we should attempt to seek some form of a successful amelioration of the conditions that are promoting this phenomenon, and, at the same time, prepare to adapt to the adverse consequences predicted for the environment both natural and cultural. That to do nothing is no longer a valid option for this planet! (34)

	Environmentalists often refer to the world as our ‘home’. Do we want a home that becomes progressively uninhabitable, or, one in which we can happily share with others? To the extent that we damage our home in this world then surely to that same extent we can set about undoing that damage, hopefully, before it becomes too late and we find ourselves unable to escape the consequences of our collective actions and non-actions. Should we not leave this world in a better condition to that state we found it in, hoping that future generations would do the same thing in turn? What must our current neighbours and future generations think if we were to live and act otherwise?! (35)
	    					    Noël Tointon, Sydney, 15.8.08.