Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Global Warming

One more, from me. I hope that the semester doesn't silence the rest of the team...I really like the discussion, rather than just me giving a monologue. I have my own blog, you know.

I am not a person who is hugely worried about global warming. I just don't see the crisis. I realize that global temperatures have been rising in recent years, and I think I understand the fears of those who do predict a crisis, but I just don't think it all holds water. The people who especially annoy me are college students who haven't looked into the issue more than what they heard from the environmental club, or the green club.

When I say that global warming doesn't strike me as strange, or not a big surprise, or a big deal...I've got backup. Check out this story for starters. (even though it isn't from a major scientific newspaper, those tend to be too dense for fun reading. Check here to see what I mean.)The scientist says that the up-tick in temperatures we've been seeing this century is due not to changes in our atmosphere (or at least, not only due to), but due to changes in the output of the sun. This seems much more likely to me. I mean, the sun is a ball of burning gas...all you have to do is watch a fire to see that burning things flicker...and they go through periods of warmer and colder times. Our atmosphere hasn't changed in a really significant way in millions of years...at least not for long enough. Also, if you look at when the temperatures began to rise, it was before industrialization really began to kick in...so something other than smog had to cause those initial temperature rises, giving rise to the thought that if it's natural sometimes, it probably is natural others...or, at least not a crisis.

For all those people who say that Florida will be under water in fifty years, or even 100 years...I say, get a life. (And this is what I hear most commonly about global warming) The scientist I linked to above is predicting that there will be a mini-ice-age in that many years, so Maine will have more to worry about than Florida.

I don't mean to imply that I have all the answers, or even that the scientists that I link to and read have all the answers. I just feel that most people who think global warming is the biggest threat facing us today haven't seen all the evidence, and that if you actually look at it all, the crisis is much less apparent. I am much more a political animal than a scientific one (at least I have been since I left high school), and what really bugs me are all the environmental groups that know better, and only choose to publish the studies that back them up...leading to them getting more money to publish more studies which get them more money. I see a con-operation, and the victims are mostly impressionable college students, and professors who have blinders on so they can't see anything outside of their own expertise, unless they are shouted at.

So, there's a rant, if you will...or just a continuation of the argument, if you won't.

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