Next Sunday, through the miracle of Digital Video Disc, the Chief Prophet of Chicken Little’ism will be speaking at the Unitarian Church Fellowship here in Amarillo:
http://panhandletruthsquad.blogspot.com/2006/11/inconvenient-truth-inconveniently.html
As you watch his predictions concerning the impending doom caused by hurricanes of ever increasing severity, bear in mind two things:
1) As early as last May, the jury was still out among meteorologists as to whether this was going to happen.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20060529-124851-7254r.htm
2) Now that the 2006 hurricane season is over, those experts who predicted a milder season have been proven right.
http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBHKNBE0VE.html
Is this a mere aberration, only to be reversed next year, or perhaps something more threatening to the Inconvenient Truth? We’ll have to wait until next hurricane season to find out. My suggestion is to watch the rhetoric. If the term “climate change” continues its ascendency to the exlusion of “global warming,” we can assume that the “experts” are hedging their bets. In the meantime, watch solar temperatures and volcanic activity on the ocean floor for clues as to what’s really happening and how much control we have over it.
For more on my opinion of the religion of global warming, see my earlier post, “Global Warming and Faith in Science”:
http://www.ivorydome.us/2006/07/25/global-warming-and-faith-in-science/
P.S. I can’t find the doomsday clock at the moment, but my best guess is that we’re down to about 9 years and one month until we’re toast. Stay tuned! I’ll be two months short of my 66th birthday by then. If the Good Lord blesses me with that many years, someone will have the opportunity to say “I told you so!”.
It amazes me that people can walk around this area and pick pieces of petrified palm trees and find fossils of early hot steamy swamp dwelling creatures and still think that with out doubt, global warming is caused by man.
I’m not saying that pollution does not matter, or even that it is not causing global warming. But over the millions of years of Earth’s existence there has been, with out doubt, cycles of extreme cooling and warming. Just as now we witness short terms of less extreme climatic temperature cycles.
The jury is still out on long term climatic changes, and will be for many thousands of years. And even if ultimately it is the fault of man there is only one real cause, that is rarely talked about, and that is that there is to many people in the world.
No matter how efficient cars or power generating stations become as long as the population continues to grow so will the threat to our planet. But population control will never be tackled by the left. They will just, as with most things, continue to insist that it is possible to herd cats, grasp smoke, or legislate anything into, or out, of existence..
I’m not saying that pollution does not matter, or even that it is not causing global warming. But over the millions of years of Earth’s existence there has been, with out doubt, cycles of extreme cooling and warming. Just as now we witness short terms of less extreme climatic temperature cycles.
I essentially agree. The case I have against environmentalists like Al Gore et al. is their cock-suredness (is that a word?) that 1) all these terrible things will surely happen unless we sign and comply with the Kyoto treaty; 2) all this is exclusively (or almost exclusively) due to human activity; and 3) if you so much as question 1) and 2), you must be for pollution.
I also have a case against the hypocrisy of Hollywood-types who are so self-righteous about driving hybirds but think nothing of jetting all over the world in their private aircraft.
As far as the effect of population growth, the problem is actually affluence growth. Despite their burgeoning populations, countries like China and India weren’t a problem until increasing numbers of their citizens could afford to pollute. Ironically, the Kyoto treaty would do little or nothing to affect this.
I essentially agree. The case I have against environmentalists like Al Gore et al. is their cock-suredness (is that a word?) that 1) all these terrible things will surely happen unless we sign and comply with the Kyoto treaty; 2) all this is exclusively (or almost exclusively) due to human activity; and 3) if you so much as question 1) and 2), you must be for pollution.
You forgot #4, 4)it’s mostly the fault of the USA and only by giving up our wealth and affluence will the problem be solved.(according to PC mythology)
As far as china and India not polluting take a look at the pictures here.
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=1036
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=4955
Evidence while not widely spread in the PC media says that more primitive but densely populated areas produce much more pollution than do modern economies. For instance in the 1800’s places like Boston and NY and Philadelphia, were much more polluted than today because of everyone heating and cooking with coal and wood.
I can’t remember exactly where I was now, but at some historical Civil War area in VA., I remember the guide telling us that several wagons running non stop in a loop over a hundred miles long was needed to keep enough wood coming for the needs of the estate. When I was there there was forest all around. They said in those days there was almost no trees at all.
I essentially agree. The case I have against environmentalists like Al Gore et al. is their cock-suredness (is that a word?) that 1) all these terrible things will surely happen unless we sign and comply with the Kyoto treaty; 2) all this is exclusively (or almost exclusively) due to human activity; and 3) if you so much as question 1) and 2), you must be for pollution
You left out #4, 4)it’s all the fault of the USA and we should give up our affluence so the rest of the world can catch up.
As far as China and India evidence although not readily available in the PC media shows that densely populated but more primitive cultures pollute far more than modern societies. For instance a city like Boston in the 1800’s was much more polluted than today because everyone cooked and heated with coal and wood. Look at these pictures.
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/search.php?ps=10&q=india&ps=10&o=0&m=all&wm=wrd
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/search.php?ps=10&q=china&ps=10&o=0&m=all&wm=wrd
I can’t remember exactly where I was now but at some Civil War tour that I took in Va. we were at a farm/ranch used as headquarters by Lee for a short time. The guide said that there were several wagons constantly running in a loop over 100 miles long to supply the wood needed for the estate. When I was there there was forest all around, in those times the land was stripped all the way to the mts. in the west.
Again population growth is the #1 problem as far as pollution goes along with war disease starvation and a host of other problems.
Again population growth is the #1 problem as far as pollution goes along with war disease starvation and a host of other problems.
Things are acting goofy today. It’s doing all kinds of wierd things to my replies. But it’s all there now after 3 tries.
You make a good point about population growth and pollution. Perhaps I should have said emerging affluence is the problem. Populous countries like China and India have become affluent enough to pollute, but not affluent enough to clean up after themselves.
During the Cold War, some of the most polluted countries were the industrialized client-states of the old Soviet Union, especially Romania and Poland. Even as late as late 1992/early 1993, most buildings in my adopted hometown of Szczecin, in northwestern Poland, were heated by coal. I remember seeing huge piles of coal on the sidewalks as I’d walk the back streets on the way to the train station.
I can only imagine how bad it must have been (and still is?) in the highly industrialized region of Upper Silesia. A friend of mine who emigrated to the states in the ’70’s likened this region to northern New Jersey: town after town, pollution upon pollution.