First off, let me say that I am absolutely opposed to the excessive pollution and apathy of major industry towards the effects of their production on our environment. I love nature and animals and prize efficiency (which is certainly not intrinsic to our consumerist society). That said, I think the whole “global warming” thing is a bit exaggerated.
Take the earth in perspective of time. For the earth, a few million years is no big deal. An ice age might last that long. Now, take the science of climatology – we only have data on temperatures (in select spots) for about 100 years going back. Not only that, but if you examine the year-to-year temperatures, they don’t go up consistently every year, but over that hundred years in some spots, if you map a chart and use very small increments, you can see an upward trend. Over 100 years an inconsistent and small increase. Out of a few billion years of earth time.
Did you know that according to scientific measurements and best guesses, the earth’s ocean levels have risen about an inch and the temperature about one degree centigrade over the last hundred years? Take this in perspective of the earth’s billions and it’s practically meaningless. OK, the earth may be warming slightly overall and maybe, even probably, some of that warming is due to humankind’s pollution and resource squandering, but if you think millions of species will go extinct or that all coastal cities will be flooded in your lifetime, you’re buying into populist paranoia.
Most anyone who reads this is going to want to tell me about Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. Let’s take a look at the “science” page of the inconvenient truth website: climatecrisis.net/thescience/
“The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.”
Remember what I was saying about perspective? We don’t even have accurate hurricane data going back 100 years (out of earth’s billions). This “doubling” in 30 years is meaningless (and since we don’t have the records, we can’t see if maybe it was actually higher at one or more points in the last 200, let alone 2000 years).
“Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.”
Oh, gee. I wonder if this could have to do with transportation technology and how humans are now able to travel more easily to formerly difficult-to-reach places. How is this supposed to relate to global warming?
“At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.”
That sounds a little scary. What’s the source for that? Oh, “nature” – of course! Everyone just look in your backyard and you’ll see those 279 species heading towards those poles.
“Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.”
Whoah, that sounds pretty frightening. Of course, it is a “could” statement and no timeframe is given (20 feet in next 20 years or next 20,000?) – what’s the source for this again? Some scientific journal? Not hardly – it’s from the Washington Post. But newspapers don’t make mistakes, they told us all about the terrible Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq…
“More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.”
I’m so glad we have that automated species-extinction counter, it makes life so much easier. Seriously, people, “over a million”? By 2050? What scientific journal came up with this figure? What’s that you say? Time Magazine? The prestigious journal written by and for climatologists – not.
I’m not kidding, this stuff is actually on the Convenient Truth website under “The Science”. If you’ve ever studied science, hopefully, you’ll find this as humorous as I do.
But whyever would anyone lie about such a thing, you might ask. For the same reasons as the people who invented the “War on Terror” – fear is a good way to control people, motivate them to follow you and give away their money. Worse, in the environmentalism case, it may be a way of “scaring” people into doing the “right” thing (which is of course, reducing our consumption and developing more “green” technologies), which stumbles right into the pitfall of “The end justifies the means,” a callow philosophy that I’ll never agree to. Lying to people to get them to do what you think is the right thing is a slippery slope to tyranny.
I’m not saying that the earth is definitely not warming, only that if it is warming, it’s only luke-warming and there’s no need to build yourself an ark just yet. Relax and go plant a tree.
