Different Slants

Comment by Don Larson

March 22, 2007 @ 9:56 pm

Global Warming is a complicated subject for sure. Thanks for your thoughts.

In 1911, the arrival of Halley’s Comet caused near-panic in large groups of people when it was thought the Earth would pass through its tail causing wide-spread death. None of that turned out to be true.

I mention that incident because the prevailing knowledge at the time seemed to be sure that it would happen and also that it would not happen, depending on who you asked. Only afterwards, did the general populations of the world see that the comet passing at that time posed no danger.

I wonder how much money, time, and effort was wasted by both sides of that debate before the outcome was generally understood to be safe?

Humans messing around with national economies for the sake of potential environmental concerns may be more dangerous than the effects of the seas rising? Wars, which we have discussed, have been caused by economic instabilities.

I say do more research over the next twenty years and see what to do then. I know from previous research the fluorocarbon emissions from Freon will be remaining in the atmosphere for about 300 years from now, even though that use has been banned for many years. Maybe we’ll find the effects of using other refrigerants as substitutes will be responsible for even more catastrophic damage?

I see the problems as real when they are understood in well-founded science. No one knew Madam Currie was killing herself with radiation when she was learning about radium. Her science helps millions today. What is she had been stopped by suspicions before the process would be understood. We might have lost those million of people.

The world is a complicated place. We don’t wish to doom future generations in any way if we can help it. But I don’t believe we know enough right now to know how to act.

I may never feel confident about it because it is a very complex subject.

Don

Comment by Russ Vreeland

May 13, 2007 @ 10:21 pm

Global warming is a Russian plot. Who else would would benefit so much from it? Ok, the Mongolians, that’s true. But all the Mongolian barbecues in the world, operated simultaneously wouldn’t put out enough greenhouse gas to affect anything. But it would smell nice.

Comment by Rick

May 14, 2007 @ 9:37 am

Personally, I have always suspected the Canadians as being behind global warming. It would improve their real estate values the most. Besides, look at those terrorist cold fronts they send across the border every winter. This obviously shows ill intentions. We should build a wall to keep out Canadian weather.

Comment by Russ

June 3, 2007 @ 12:07 pm

On a more serious tack, I watched “The Great Global Warming Swindle” as well and I’ve read many articles and postings that make the same argument. If you can get past the cheesy production, one thing I’ve noticed is no one — not one instance that I’m aware of — refutes the main points made in that film which are that CO2 is a rather poor greenhouse gas, that the curve of temperature increase over the last hundred years or so correlates very imperfecly with CO2 increase but almost exactly with solar activity, and that ice core samples — which previously had been considered to be prima facie evidence of CO2-caused global heating — actually show the opposite causality, that CO2 increases always lagged the warming, sometimes by hundreds of years.

I also consider the human nature aspect of the argument to be very compelling; that careers have been made on the global warming bandwagon, and that billions of dollars are at stake, and in that context, pursuit of truth takes a back seat. Sadly, academia and science are as political if not more so than any other manifestations of human organization.

The goals of the global warming movement actually are laudable — up to a point — but for reasons having little to do with global warming. Ceasing the sending of hundreds of billions of dollars to the insane states of the Middle East is reason enough to wean ourselves from dependency on oil, and to do so in an urgent manner.