National Review Editor: ‘Hooray for Global Warming’

Truthdig readers, we need your help: We can’t figure out if this pro-global warming column by a National Review Online editor is tongue-in-cheek satire or actual criticism. Thoughts?

National Review:

... Personally, I don’t know what all the shouting is about. Global warming is great. Granted, maybe it isn’t really happening, and if it is there are strong reasons to doubt that humans have anything to do with it. But if the world is warming, I say “bravo.” People in most parts of the globe should have no objection to a warmer, wetter climate. If the aliens were watching they’d conclude we were making our planet more habitable on purpose.

Consider the large landmasses in the northern hemisphere, say north of 55 degrees. These are very extreme climates for human habitation. A population distribution map of Canada shows most people live in a belt running along the southern border with the United States. But add global warming and vast regions would become comfortably habitable. As well, there would be more land available for cultivation. Resources would be easier to extract. True, there might be some dislocations as crops shifted northward, but so what? Economies change all the time. And imagine the land boom up the coastlines as people rushed on up for beachfront property. If global warming is real it is creating the investment opportunity of a lifetime.

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