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Time magazine had a cover story about global warming last week. It said, "Be worried. Be very worried". The coverage hyped the threat of man made global warming without skepticism. That's because, as they say, "the science is settled".
Nicholas von Hoffman used to have a tag line with his columns that
said, "When you walk into a room and everyone is in agreement,
they're usually wrong".
When I see journalists and scientists in the same story and no skepticism I become worried. Very worried.
The skepticism has long been stifled by science. Global warming is a fact. Even GWB doesn't deny it anymore.
The only thing that is left for argument is the cause of the warming. Man-made or a natural weather cycle? The evidence suggests man has negatively affected the Earth's natural insulation, but I guess you can be skeptical if you wish.
Mr. C., Many thanks for giving your permission to be skeptical. I wasn't sure it was legal.
Attacking the scientific evidence of global warming is not much different than the Church's attack on Galileo and Copernicus, whose theories were inconvenient to Church dogma.
Scientific evidence supporting the case that global warming is man-made is inconvenient and likely very costly to thousands of industries. It's no more complicated than that. Nobody, consumer or businessmen alike are anxious to foot the bill to solve the problem, but disparaging science is not the path to a solution. It didn't work for the tobacco companies and it's not going to work for those who oppose the man-made global
warming case. If you think global warming is an anomaly then two things: Where's your data and what if you're wrong?
Deb…You might have expected I'd chime in on this one. Skepticism is a good thing because it should lead to research (on a personal level) which helps one reach a logical conclusion. I attended two conferences last fall which focused on climate change and its effects on ecosystems in the North Pacific. Particularly poignant were the presentations by several Inuit village elders who are seeing their people's way of life change before their eyes. Their part of the world is warmer then it has been in thousands of years and it has happened in a relative nick of time, primarily the last two decades. Pack ice is disappearing, ocean levels are rising and the entire arctic ecosystem is undergoing vast changes. The earth has warmed and cooled periodically over the eons but the transitions have never been this quick, leaving species no chance to evolve strategies to deal with it. They are disappearing at an alarming rate that can in no way be considered a natural response.
I forget exactly how many billions of humans inhabit this planet these days but in my mind the evidence is overwhelming that our activities (primarily the consumption of fossil fuels) is exacerbating what is likely a natural warming phase. Don't just take my word for it. Google "global warming" and you'll find more information then you can read in a lifetime. Cheers.
Mencken has spoken; yet I still dissent. Which way to the Gulag comrade?
Not sure what your point is Mr. Kelso.
It must be those un-documented bean eaters taking not only our jobs but our clean air also.
It's hard to get an accurate reading of your kid's fever, depending on where you stick the thermometer. I have to believe it's really hard to get an accurate average reading for the whole earth over a long period of time. Antarctica, for example, is supposedly actually cooling on average even though huge sheets of ice have disappeared.
Mencken drags in the tobacco companies. In that debate scientists on tobacco payrolls were discredited. Scientists in the global warming debate are chasing federal global warming dollars. That doesn't mean they're wrong but I think it's worth a little skepticism. (By the way, doesn't less smoking mean fewer global warming emissions?)
Even if the earth is warming it's hard to prove man caused it.
The thing that makes me most skeptical is that the very ground I'm sitting on in NE Ohio was covered by a glacier. It melted long before there were any man made emissions, beyond the occasional mastodon roast. Come to think of it, Batman, that species didn't evolve a very adequate natural reponse.
Chip, that study you cite on Antartica was funded partly by the
fossil fuel companies. Your point that Ohio was once covered by a glacier is worth noting but I think Batman covered that point very well as far as the time frame.
"Scientists in the global warming debate are chasing federal global warming dollars." Chip,show me a research scientist anywhere that does not chase federal dollars. Please.
I think if you check you'll find there are far more "research' dollars being spent by industry in hopes of disproving global warming than not. Look, between 1997 and 2003, 165 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas was released in the world. Your opinion would be that figure is inconsequential?
Chip- I enjoyed your erstwhile scientific contribution to this discussion immensely. I recall a related conversation we had around your ice rink a few winters ago. I chalked up our inability to agree on things ecological to the many martinis we had consumed. Guess that may not have been the case. Doesn't matter, I still love ya buddy. By the way, Mastodons were around for about two million years, a pretty decent record of longevity. The way we're going, the modern hominid (that's us) won't even come close to matching it.
Well, Batman, I think the ice rink speaks for itself. For that matter so do the martinis. As for 165 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas running loose in the world, Mencken, I have no idea what that means. It sounds like a big number to me but in terms of the federal budget it's puny. If greenhouse gas means co2 I guess it means a lot more trees. Since the Reagan era, of course, we all know they pollute. I guess we are doomed.
Yeah Reagan said trees pollute and ketchup was a vegetable.
There's a joke there somewhere.
For the record, although at times trees do emit certain
photochemicals, they ABSORB C02 and RESPIRE oxygen.
There's a net gain in there, trust me.
A metric ton equals 2204.6 pounds. Nobody should say Chip's
blog isn't educational.
Batman- someone else was waiting for the bat signal, but I have enjoyed the ensuing mobilization. I'll just be glad when we have leaves on our trees, not to be flip about the Inuits.
Me and science are homeboys, but please drop the scientist as prophet spiel. Life is complicated — slow down and let science do it's job.
The sky is not falling!
Will it rain tomorrow?