In the vast global warming arena, hurricane building is one method scientists use to debate global warming’s impact.
William Gray, the well-known Colorado State University hurricane forecaster, routinely uses the annual National Hurricane Conference as a platform to bash global warming. Gray argues that the scientific consensus on global warming is bogus — and "a mild form of McCarthyism has developed toward those scientists who do not agree" that mankind is in danger.
He basically derides anyone who portrays global warming as a doomsday scenario to be alarmists and charlatans out to brainwash our children.
In the pre-Inconvenient Truth days global warming was a topic discussed mainly among environmental hobbyists and a few scientists. Since then it has become the number one threat to all mankind.
Is global warming the harbinger of Earth’s final days? And does mankind have anything to do with hastening its arrival?
Al Gore is not a scientist, he does however possess the ability to marry climate change science with fears of climate change to produce a very effective piece of documentary film work that has garnered a huge following.
Casting Al Gore as the unchallenged guru of climate change is dangerous and disingenuous to true scientific discipline. It represents the lazy mans way of scientific study.
In this day of quick and easy access to an overwhelming amount of data on any subject, we tend to search for and more readily accept easily digestible packets that best match our view of the world. Access to widespread distribution allows for quicker dissemination of popular ideas which are then, too often, taken for fact. When you invest your belief system in what later turns out to be erroneous facts you begin to question your ability to determine what is real or fiction.
At the risk of being labeled a climate change contrarian, I will state that environmentalist want to believe that mankind is the evil doer in the climate change scenario. Climate change has been taking place since the earth was created. I will not dismiss human-kinds effect on climate change, I just want to go on record that the human connection to climate change has not yet been definitively defined. I am certain there are other mitigating factors of which I am sure humans have some link to but we are not alone in bringing about global warming. Nor do I believe we will come to an end as a result of it.
We need more proof before buying into what amounts to be a conspiracy theory of which every human has unwittingly taken part.
Science has been stumbling through theories about the climate since a Swedish scientist published, in 1896, the new idea that as humanity burned fossil fuels such as coal, which added carbon dioxide gas to the Earth's atmosphere, we would raise the planet's average temperature. This process was dubbed "greenhouse effect" and was only one of many speculations about climate, and not the most plausible.
In the early 1970s, the rise of environmentalism raised public awareness of the effects of human activity on the planet. Curiosity soon turned into anxious concern. Alongside the greenhouse effect, some scientists pointed out that human activity was putting dust and smog particles into the atmosphere, where they could block sunlight and cool the world. Analysis of Northern Hemisphere weather statistics showed that a cooling trend had begun in the 1940s. This contradiction in scientific findings led to a division in public opinion, those who believed we were headed toward major flooding of coastal area as the ice caps melted versus the school of thought that the Earth was about to enter a catastrophic new ice age.
Climate is a vastly intricate system that responds to many influences, such as variations in the heat of the sun, volcanoes erupting clouds of smoke, subtle changes in Earth’s orbit, and even the raising and lowering of mountain ranges which divert wind patterns and ocean currents. These changes are subtle and beyond man’s control, but they do have an influence on the climate. To say that mankind’s influence on the climate overshadows any of these naturally occurring phenomena is simply placing too great an importance on mankind’s ability.
We can of course minimize our own influence but that would require a Herculean effort to get everyone to act as one and truly, when has that ever happened? Not a very likely scenario is it? Scientists cannot even get organized enough to give us a single answer to the cause of global warming because there are simply too many influences. How could we possibly come up with a solution to reverse the global warming trend?
So, why do we put so much faith in one man who is not even a scientist or an expert in the field of climatology?
Perhaps if scientists could all pool their money and create a flashy documentary film that would show climate change to be a good thing and tirelessly push it on the talk circuit the rest of us would relax enough to live our lives and not worry so much about that which we truly have so little control over.
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2 comments:
Only when the last tree has died
and the last river been poisoned
and the last fish been caught
will we realise we cannot eat money.
(Cree Indian saying)
Doing nothing is not an option Greg. No matter what people think about climate change, cleaning up the earth is good for eveyone and everything.
A bit of fear makes people think - people who have never thought about anything but themselves. I don't think its a conspiracy but I do think the media is using it to their advantage, but what's new about that? I haven't seen the Al Gore film for that reason, but there are several scientists in Australia whose views I listen to carefully and that's the best I can do.
I've read that poem before and always thought it to have so much truth.
At times it just seems there are not enough of us believers to counter balance those who don't seem to care. It's discouraging but you are right, we cannot give up and we must do what we can.
As always, thanks for your comments.
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