The Great Debate - Global Warming
Addendum 8/21: New Danish study suggests Greenland's glaciers have been melting for the past 100 years or more. This would contradict the popular theory of recent global warming: Read the story here.
One indisputable conclusion is that the climate is in a recent warming trend overall. Things get crazy though when people start trying to determine the repercussions and effects of a warming trend as well as the cause of it.
My short answer is: "We don't know for sure". The truth of the matter is, despite Al Gore's myopic and biased piece of propoganda An Inconvenient Truth which ignored a large segment of the scientific community's opposing input and rebutted by MIT atmospheric scientist Richard Lindzen (what a heckuva contradiction in a movie title, eh?), we really do not have all of the answers. It makes no sense whatsoever to believe anybody does completely. Global climate study is in a relatively infantile stage as are relatively accurate weather records....150 years at best. Yet, I still see staunch advocates on either side of the debate relying on recorded weather records for less than 100 years. Given that the earth is billions of years old, that is a pretty miniscule amount of statistical data, don't you think? LOL!!!
To underscore my point, the Atlantic tropical season activity is now BELOW AVERAGE much to the chagrin of the hysterical environmental alarmists which predicted an even worse 2006 season.
Even this statistic is based strictly on hurricane data from 1944 (only a 50 year average!!) including the 2005 "most active season ever". It's almost as if Mother Nature is determined to prove us wrong every time we are arrogant enough to believe that we have her completely figured out. Arguably, the inactive season (so far!) could actually be in part due to global warming as a huge plume of Saharan Desert dust has spread out all over the breeding ground areas of the Atlantic basin helping to disrupt the processes which generate hurricanes in that area....the most important of which is the sea surface temperatures running below normal. This is the theory at least supported by a part of the scientific community.
Speaking of which, the scientific community is pretty divided over the issue. Now that some of the intimidation and bullying of scientists with opposing ideas has subsided, more and more are courageously speaking out. Here is a good journalistic piece on the issue which presents both sides of the issue...something quite rare nowadays in the media circus. Read the Washington Post article.
For the record, I am convinced we should take global warming very seriously and do what we can to not contribute to or exacerbate the problem. Greatly reducing the crap we pour into the air by burning fossil fuels or anything the might adversely affect the ozone layer is the logical and smart thing to do even without any hard-core scientific evidence to support it one way or the other....it's just basic, common horse sense.
I am concerened with the climate changes we are witnessing right now. We should err on the side of caution in our efforts to reduce our possible contributions to it. However, we should not do so with hysteric-based theories nor based on narrow-minded science that is still in it's analysis stages. It's even worse to try and suppress, ignore or dismiss "unpopular" scientific research and opinions in this debate. It's that whole "open-minded" thing. ;-) After all, solid climate study has clearly shown extreme swings in the earth's climate over the past millenium. Some of that is now being correlated to extreme volcanic activity during those periods. So, who's to say we aren't in just a normal climate fluctuation right now? But, as I said earlier, it's not wise to assume that we can continue pumping tons of pollutants into the atmosphere without retribution from Ma Nature.
In summary, we really don't have all of the answers...just lots of good theories supported by a microscopic amount of data across a millenia's worth. I think once everybody agrees on that and starts working together insted of pushing agendas or individual career/political aspirations, we'll all be better off in the long run. The media could certainly help by being much more journalistic instead of pumping out sensational regurgitation of their own biasis.
My short answer is: "We don't know for sure". The truth of the matter is, despite Al Gore's myopic and biased piece of propoganda An Inconvenient Truth which ignored a large segment of the scientific community's opposing input and rebutted by MIT atmospheric scientist Richard Lindzen (what a heckuva contradiction in a movie title, eh?), we really do not have all of the answers. It makes no sense whatsoever to believe anybody does completely. Global climate study is in a relatively infantile stage as are relatively accurate weather records....150 years at best. Yet, I still see staunch advocates on either side of the debate relying on recorded weather records for less than 100 years. Given that the earth is billions of years old, that is a pretty miniscule amount of statistical data, don't you think? LOL!!!
To underscore my point, the Atlantic tropical season activity is now BELOW AVERAGE much to the chagrin of the hysterical environmental alarmists which predicted an even worse 2006 season.
Even this statistic is based strictly on hurricane data from 1944 (only a 50 year average!!) including the 2005 "most active season ever". It's almost as if Mother Nature is determined to prove us wrong every time we are arrogant enough to believe that we have her completely figured out. Arguably, the inactive season (so far!) could actually be in part due to global warming as a huge plume of Saharan Desert dust has spread out all over the breeding ground areas of the Atlantic basin helping to disrupt the processes which generate hurricanes in that area....the most important of which is the sea surface temperatures running below normal. This is the theory at least supported by a part of the scientific community.Speaking of which, the scientific community is pretty divided over the issue. Now that some of the intimidation and bullying of scientists with opposing ideas has subsided, more and more are courageously speaking out. Here is a good journalistic piece on the issue which presents both sides of the issue...something quite rare nowadays in the media circus. Read the Washington Post article.
For the record, I am convinced we should take global warming very seriously and do what we can to not contribute to or exacerbate the problem. Greatly reducing the crap we pour into the air by burning fossil fuels or anything the might adversely affect the ozone layer is the logical and smart thing to do even without any hard-core scientific evidence to support it one way or the other....it's just basic, common horse sense.
I am concerened with the climate changes we are witnessing right now. We should err on the side of caution in our efforts to reduce our possible contributions to it. However, we should not do so with hysteric-based theories nor based on narrow-minded science that is still in it's analysis stages. It's even worse to try and suppress, ignore or dismiss "unpopular" scientific research and opinions in this debate. It's that whole "open-minded" thing. ;-) After all, solid climate study has clearly shown extreme swings in the earth's climate over the past millenium. Some of that is now being correlated to extreme volcanic activity during those periods. So, who's to say we aren't in just a normal climate fluctuation right now? But, as I said earlier, it's not wise to assume that we can continue pumping tons of pollutants into the atmosphere without retribution from Ma Nature.
In summary, we really don't have all of the answers...just lots of good theories supported by a microscopic amount of data across a millenia's worth. I think once everybody agrees on that and starts working together insted of pushing agendas or individual career/political aspirations, we'll all be better off in the long run. The media could certainly help by being much more journalistic instead of pumping out sensational regurgitation of their own biasis.
posted by Steve Miller TX at 8/20/2006 11:04:00 PM
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