Global...cooling?
Look for this on the front page of the Tribune tomorrow, our local global warming cheerleader. I seem to recall our local editorial board commenting in the last year or so that the notion of man-caused global warming is now beyond serious debate.
Hmmmm.
8 comments:
I'm not sure what message you're trying to get across with this post.
Even if this article is accurate, there's no incompatibility here with global warming. As we all know, a multitude of factors affects climate.
What's not denied in this article is that high carbon emissions are also responsible for climate change. In fact you don't have to be a scientist to notice that Montana's climate is changing -- who can remember such a spate of warm winters and hot summers? The rampaging forest fires?
(Incidentally, this year is going to be another big fire year. The forest service guys I know said the fires had already started in the Southwest -- three months ahead of schedule. Where's our little ice age when we need it?)
But then science isn't exactly a strength among conservatives...
I guess statistics isn't a strength among liberals either (nice gratuitous ad hominem attack, by the way). Earth is what, 4.5 billion years old? And you are going to draw conclusions from a sample size of 10 years? I see...
But the real point is that anything that potentially conflicts with the established, liberal dogma never quite finds its way into the Tribune.
Touchstone,
Most of my professional life has been spent in technical fields. Trust me conservatives dominate the applied sciences (engineering) and understand the development of theories. The argument is not whether there is recent global warming but why (carbon gases, carbon particulates, normal climate cycle …etc). The left also alienates itself from science when it is not convenient to their politics. Try to have a reasoned discussion about the acceptable level of mercury to be allowed for the new coal-fired generating facility. How many on left feel that zero is the only answer as if mercury is a man made chemical that only occurs because of evil men. The fact that mercury is naturally occurring and normally present in our food and air is some how forgotten. The fact that they release airborne mercury every time hot air rushes over their amalgam fillings while making a zero tolerance argument is the ultimate irony.
The message, Touchstone, (if I may GeeGuy) is... there's not enough evidence based on climate history to say global warming is a natural occurring act or if it's a by-product of man's influence on the world's climate. Seem to remember a lot of climate experts predicting a looming ice age back in the 1970s. You gotta love predictions.
What it indicates to me is that the earth goes through climate cycles. I like GeeGuy's point that global warming extremists take a microcosm of earth's history and attribute grand significance to it. The hubris!
Of course the climate goes in cycles. That's not really the issue. The question is whether we might be effecting the period or amplitude of these cycles. It would not be the first time that organisms have effected the climate: single celled organisms did a pretty good job at changing the composition of the atmosphere billions of years ago. Currently, we are releasing carbon dioxide, from oil, which comes from decaying plants. It took millions of years for those plants to decay and get buried. There's your cycle.
As for attributing grand significance to a "microcosm of earth's history"--well duh!! It's the one that we happen to be living in, so, yeah, it's significant for us.
With all due respect, I don't think Gman was arguing that the "microcosm" is significant to us, because it obviously is. I think he was arguing that extremists attach significance to the microcosm relative to the grand scheme of earth's history.
But thanks for reading, and it is so refreshing to read a non-snide post disagreeing with someone!
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