It has been a while since I have done an overblown rant about something, and today I finally have reached my breaking point on Global Warming. According to Al Gore and the "global warming panic-mongers", sea levels will rise 20 feet in the next 100 years and we are all gonna die unless we go back to the horse and buggy and repent. Ok...I'm being a little dramatic here, but you get the point. People need to calm the hell down and relax for a while. Sure, we all are concerned about the environment and I am no exception, but every day that I read news stories on the internet, something else is caused by global warming. In January, everyone in the northeast was saying how mild a winter it was and BOOM...there are the news stories about how a two month warm period is caused by global warming. Funny how those stories have disappeared now that winter kicked everyone's ass in that area of the country. Lucky for you (my great Margarita Lounge readers) , I have done some homework on this subject recently and I don't see that big a deal. According to the data I looked at there has been a warming of the planet since the mid 1970s..there is no disputing this. But there was also a cooling of the planet from the 1940s though the mid 1970s...a period where there was plenty of CO2 emissions. In my opinion, basing dire conclusions on merely 30 years of data seems rather odd. If I would have followed this type of reasoning in 1999, the NASDAQ would now be at 25,000. If I would have followed this type of reasoning in 2002, the stock market would now be at 0 and we would all be living in a third world country. For those of you who don't get the stock market reference, here is the easiest way to explain the analogy. We are currently making dire predictions based on 30 years of data...30 years of data on a planet that is approximately 4.5 billion years old.
If you still think I am talking out of my ass, I offer two great articles run in 1974 and 1975 by Time and Newsweek. Please check them out below and try not to laugh too hard!
Time Article
Newsweek Article
4 comments:
Todd,
I'm with you on this...I don't want to harm the planet. I'm not sure anybody really does but to make doomsday predictions based on small amounts of data is crazy. (Well, not so crazy when you consider all the money behind it but that's another story)
Also, is warming "necessarily" bad? Maybe, maybe not...
Anyway, I've been reading a lot on this topic and just to give it a fair shake I'm going to watch Mr Gore's movie. I'm also planning a big rant on my blog about this myself.
Keep it up!
I know y'all expect me to jump in here, and so I will.
The data that's being studied isn't small. Not at all. In "An Inconvenient Truth," you see samples that have been taken from ice bores in the Antarctic. The bores span over 100,000 years of environmental history and contain tiny air samples for every time period contained in them.
The samples clearly show temperatures rising and falling periodically during that timeframe, as is normal. However, the samples taken in the 20th century show a dramatic rise in temperatures which happen to correspond with the amount of CO2 in the air.
I was on the fence about global warming too but that graph convinced me. Al Gore didn't produce the graph: trained scientists did. Experts in the field. I trust their conclusions.
There is no denying that the planet is getting warmer. There's no denying that the loss of the ice shelves in Greenland and Antarctica would have a dramatic effect on the world's shorelines. There is no denying that CO2 levels have risen with the temperature. What still seems to be debatable (to me at least) is whether the CO2 is making us warmer.
Watch the movie (or read the book) and THEN make up your mind. Or if you have Gorephobia then dig into other research on the topic. There is plenty of evidence out there. Check it out for yourself.
And since you brought it up, Scott, give me and example of "all the money" that's behind global warming. I'm not aware of this.
MT.Net
I think Scott is referencing Mr Gore's company, the one that is (conveniently) involved in these "carbon credits" that Al is promoting. Seems like a conflict of interest. There is also a lot of money in "green technologies" that companies are now peddling to the public due to global warming. Maybe that's not what Scottie meant and I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth...
In any case, thanks for the responses, guys. I hope I get more opinions from people like you...
Actually, Todd...that's just part of the cash trail.
There's cash involved in all areas of the Global Warming debate. Oil companies, green companies and yes, our Government!
Current US funding for research is at 3 billion per year. President Bush has asked that it be upped to 4.2 billion.
ExxonMobile, between 2001-2003, gave 6.5 million to companies for funding.
So, my point is, that all the politicizing of this issue has made it a big industry and people on all sides of the issue have a vested interest.
Therefore, all readers of information ON BOTH SIDES, should be very skeptical and consider the source.
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