Eric's take on Global Warming...
The Weather Girl here at work rolls her eyes every time the words "Global Warming" are mentioned-- "There's no such thing," she says.
Last week, however, a group of smart-guy scientists announced that the Earth hasn't been this hot in 400 years. This, apparently is evidence of Global Warming. Later that evening Bob Schieffer on the CBS Evening News said, and I paraphrase, "Some scientist push that number back even father... One Thousand Years, in fact."
Just a few days later I was greeted with headlines... "Earth's Temperature Not This Hot In 2000 Years!"
So which is it? Four-hundred? A thousand? TWO-thousand? And how is this evidence of global warming?
All this really means is that 400 years ago it was as hot as it is now... With less population, less pollution, less automobiles, and less excessive CO2 emissions.
All this really means is that 1,000 years ago it was just as hot as it is today... With much less population, even less pollution, far fewer automobiles, and less excessive CO2 emissions.
Which means when Jesus himself was walking the earth, it was as hot as it is today. With far less population, far less pollution, not a single automobile in sight, and far far far less CO2 emissions.
So. Global Warming? I think I'll take the weather girl's word, and simple common sense, before I take Albert's, who believes the world has less than 10 years to institute drastic measures before it is too late to save the Planet.
Is pollution a problem? Sure. So let's deal with it and stop trying to scare the kiddies. The world's scary enough as it is.
In anthoer thread Ms. Green gave me a few scenarios and wnated me to compare/contrast. Now I'm gonna do the same her.
1. Man Made Global Warming isn't happening and the stronger storms, shrinking glaciers, rising sea levels are a natural cycle. Mankind ignores the problem and we all die.
2. Man Made Global Warming isn't happening, but anyway we work to try to alleviate the pressures of humanity on the earth, and mankind might survive.
3. Man Made Global Warming is happening and all those new carsand belching factories just keep adding to the problem until we all die.
4. Man Made Global warming is happening and the countries of the earth work together to find new ways to develop and grow without causing a deadly feedback from the planet. Maybe mankind can survive and prosper.
Of course these are only four scenarios that spring to mind. The fact is that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that the temp of the earth is rising. WXGirl may be debating exactly how much is natural planetary cycle vs. man-made impact. But if we do nothing NO ONE expects things to stabilize by themselves.
Here is an editorial by someone who was a vocal SKEPTIC of global warming until recently:
Finally Feeling the Heat
By GREGG EASTERBROOK
TODAY "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's movie about the greenhouse
effect, opens in New York and California. Many who already believe
global warming is a menace will flock to the film; many who scoff at
the notion will opt for Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks. But has anything
happened in recent years that should cause a reasonable person to
switch sides in the global-warming debate?
Yes: the science has changed from ambiguous to near-unanimous. As an
environmental commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism.
But based on the data I'm now switching sides regarding global
warming, from skeptic to convert.
Once global-warming science was too uncertain to form the basis of
policy decisions — and this was hardly just the contention of oil
executives. "There is no evidence yet" of dangerous climate change, a
National Academy of Sciences report said in 1991. A 1992 survey of the
American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society
found that only 17 percent of members believed there was sufficient grounds to declare an artificial greenhouse effect in progress. In 1993 Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, said there existed "a great range of uncertainty" regarding whether the world is warming. Clearly, the question called for more research.
That research is now in, and it shows a strong scientific consensus
that an artificially warming world is a real phenomenon posing real
danger:
The American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society in
2003 both declared that signs of global warming had become compelling.
In 2004 the American Association for the Advancement of Science said
that there was no longer any "substantive disagreement in the
scientific community" that artificial global warming is happening.
In 2005, the National Academy of Sciences joined the science academies of Britain, China, Germany, Japan and other nations in a joint statement saying, "There is now strong evidence that significant
global warming is occurring."
This year Mr. Karl of the climatic data center said research now
supports "a substantial human impact on global temperature increases."
And this month the Climate Change Science Program, the Bush
administration's coordinating agency for global-warming research,
declared it had found "clear evidence of human influences on the
climate system."
Case closed. Earth's surface, atmosphere and seas are warming; ocean currents are slowing; ice shelves are melting faster than projected; spring is coming ever sooner; rainfall patterns are changing; North American migratory birds are ranging father north; the ability of the earth to self-regulate to resist warming appears to be waning. While
natural variation may play roles in climatic trends, overwhelming
evidence points to the accumulation of greenhouse gases, mainly from
the burning of fossil fuels, as the key.
Many greenhouse uncertainties remain, including whether rising
temperatures would necessarily be bad. A warming world might moderate
global energy demand: the rise in temperature so far has mostly
expressed itself as milder winters, not hotter summers. Warming might
open vast areas of Alaska, Canada and Russia to development. My
hometown of Buffalo might become a vacation paradise. (Buffalo
lakefront real estate is cheap. Here's a tip: buy some now.)
But it seems likely any global-warming benefits will be offset by unwanted trends. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that in the coming century, sea levels may rise by as much as three feet.
Tropical storms may continue to increase in number and fury. Diseases now confined to equatorial regions may spread father north and south.
The greatest worry is that climate change will harm the agricultural
system on which civilization is based. Suppose climate change shifted
precipitation away from breadbasket regions, sending rain clouds
instead to the world's deserts. Over generations, society would adjust
— but years of global food shortages might occur during the
adjustment, likely causing chaos in poor countries and armies of
desperate refugees at the borders of wealthy nations.
Scientific substantiation of a warming world is not necessarily reason
for gloom. Greenhouse gases are an air pollution problem, and all air
pollution problems of the past have cost significantly less to fix
than critics projected, and the solutions have worked faster than
expected.
During the 1960's, smog in America was increasing at a worrisome rate;
predictions were that smog controls would render cars exorbitantly
expensive. Congress imposed smog regulations, and an outpouring of
technical advances followed. Smog emissions in the United States have
declined by almost half since 1970, and the technology that
accomplishes this costs perhaps $100 per car.
Similarly, two decades ago a "new Silent Spring" was said to loom from
acid rain. In 1991, Congress created a profit incentive to reduce acid
rain: a system of tradable credits that rewards companies that make
the fastest reductions. Since 1991 acid rain emissions have declined
36 percent, and the cost has been only 10 percent of what industry
originally forecast.
Today no one can make money by reducing greenhouse gases, so emissions
rise unchecked. But a system of tradable greenhouse permits, similar
to those for acid rain, would create a profit incentive. Engineers and
entrepreneurs would turn to the problem. Someone might even invent
something cheap that would spread to the poorer countries, preventing
reductions here from being swamped elsewhere. Unlikely? Right now
reformulated gasoline and the low-cost catalytic converter, invented
here to contain smog, are becoming common in developing nations.
President Bush was right to withdraw the United States from the
cumbersome Kyoto greenhouse treaty, which even most signatories are
ignoring. But Mr. Bush should speak to history by proposing a binding
greenhouse-credit trading system within the United States. Waiting for science no longer justifies delay, as results are now in.
Gregg Easterbrook, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, is the
author of "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People
Feel Worse."
All your objections to my post do not make void my own objections. I don't claim that man isn't affecting the environment, only that the weather now is not as remarkable as Albert and other scare-mongers would have us believe.
And I fully endorse the idea that we should be more responsible. We should protect our environment.
Good luck with that, by the way. Man is irresponsible by nature.
Do you get the Discovery Channel? Next Sunday (and repeated the following saturday) they're having a special called "global warming: what you need to know." I'm going to try to catch it.
Do you get the Discovery Channel? Next Sunday (and repeated the following saturday) they're having a special called "global warming: what you need to know." I'm going to try to catch it.
:)