Saturday, January 13, 2007  Selective Perception, Global
Warming, and self delusion  A few weeks ago I was talking with a
college student, a daughter of some old friends, who had taken a
course from an environmentalist professor who apparently claimed
that the world temperature had gone up by seven degrees in the
last decade or two--she wasn't sure of the precise numbers. She
expressed the view that snowy winters were now a thing of the
past, offering the (then current, midwest) warmth as evidence.
Currently, the midwest is caught in a severe ice storm and
California, where I live, is unseasonably cold instead of
unseasonably warm. I have not, however, heard anyone offering
that as evidence that the next ice age is impending, and I doubt
that the student has revised her predictions.  Of course, the
current weather isn't evidence of global cooling, or at least
not significant evidence. Nor was the weather a few weeks ago
significant evidence for global warming. But once people believe
in global warming, it's