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Mike, my conservative friend, I'm always glad when you share your viewpoints here. It helps people understand a different point of view, even if they disagree with it.
In the paragraph you quote, Griffin seems to be protecting his right flank for the sin of admitting that global warming has a large anthropogenic component. The million years argument is a red herring, for the following reason.
If people's actions can have a large contribution to global warming, then changing those actions can also have a large contribution to avoiding the worst consequences, regardless of what the rest of nature is doing. Griffin accepts the premise of this statement, but simply says it's arrogant to call the consequences bad.
Specifically, the last 100 years have demonstrated the impact of human activities to a small but quantifiable amount. Using the best data and a variety of thoroughly vetted models, climatologists are able to attribute those changes, to the greatest extent, to excess CO2. Griffin accepts those models and their results as valid.
The same models predict that business as usual will lead to much larger changes in the coming century. A corollary is that limiting greenhouse gas emissions will minimize those changes.
Griffin doesn't dispute the scenarios, but just says it is arrogant for us to presume they are bad news. If he advocated action, he'd lose his job.
It will be interesting to watch him dance as the bullets fly at him from both directions.
Stay tuned.
Fred Bortz
Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com)
and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)