If it’s done right, the planned new climate research center at Oregon State University could be a big boon to everybody in Oregon. In line with the mission of a state university, it could become a place to get reliable answers to questions that people have on this topic. And if that happens, we’ll have less reason to keep arguing about what exactly is happening, and why, and what if anything should be done.

This would be in sharp contrast to what’s been going on around the country so far.

Just last week, for example, the Associated Press reported on a “teach-in” at Lewis and Clark College and universities nationwide to push the notion that “time is running out” to address global warming.

Teach-ins came into vogue to express opposition to the Vietnam War. By choosing that term, the organizers signaled they were on a crusade or political campaign.

This is the atmosphere now concerning global warming. It’s like the civil rights movement of the ’60s, where every right-thinking young person was on the same side and there was no other side worth consideration.

In that atmosphere, only certain sentiments are allowed. Anybody who raises a question is denounced as illogical. The only real question should be: What do the data say?

For instance, we are told that the arctic ice cap is melting. Indeed, summertime satellite images show a gradual lessening of the part of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice. And we’ve had satellites since when? So is this is long-term trend?

While we’re at the poles, most of the news coverage tells us that an ice shelf on Antarctica is melting. Other stories occasionally mention, meekly, that overall, ice in the Antarctic is increasing. It would be helpful to have some place the public can trust to sort out the conflicting measurements and give the public the straight scoop.

Climate change has become the basis for important policy changes, starting with the push to make ethanol, which is raising the price of food. The policy makers are convinced they have all the facts they need. But they don’t, and some of the facts they do have may not be facts at all.

So let us hope the new OSU research center will be less an instrument for furthering a cause than a place to find and distribute facts. (hh)