Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Global warming debunked?

So they find some emails and all the sudden global warming isn't happening? It doesn't surprise me that there are some dishonest and biased scientists, but there is a large body of evidence supporting the global climates changes we have been observing. Birds fly south later and come back north earlier, polar can't hunt because sea ice is declining, plants and animals are expanding their range northward - these facts cannot be disputed. However, the amount of impact from anthropogenic sources can be disputed, but I still think that to think that there is no consequence from pumping tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is delusional. We know that one of the main factors that makes earth inhabitable versus Mars or Venus is the presence of greenhouse gases that trap radiation and moderate the planet's temperature.
I did some modeling for my turtle research, granted it was much more rudimentary, but I did have to understand and state all the caveats to the process and frankly, it is all a bunch of bullshit. So that the climate changes models are incorrect is not surprising at the least. However, there is still a lot of evidence that says the climate is slowly warming, even if average temperatures seem to be holding steady lately. The climate is warming, there is little debate over that. The question is, how much, if any, effect do humans have on altering the natural processes related to climate? To that I would repeat, to think that there is no consequence from pumping tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is delusional. It is gonna catch up to us someday.
Furthermore, there are many other reasons to phase out fossil fuels - pollution, political instability, long term availability, etc. The combustion engine is so inefficient, and burning coal, isn't that what people used to heat their homes before electricity? This is how far we have progressed? I find it amazing that we don't move away from burning fossil fuels simply because the alternative is much cheaper. For example, there is a free source of energy that comes up every morning. Hopefully, someday when energy is basically free and widely available, mankind will look back at our primitive sources of energy and think how dumb we were.

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