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Well, first off I'd have to say that whether or not global warming exists and whether or not we're causing it is a moot point. After all, the world is scheduled to end December 21st, 2012. But if the Mayans are wrong... well, they're not. I've been to the future. Very depressing place, really.
On topic now.
I'm still not convinced of human-caused shift in global climates. When I was in Middle School, my school did this whole week of crazy, leftist propaganda telling us eating meat is wrong, fur is murder, gun-owners are evil, nuclear power (although safe) is bad, violence has no place on TV (except for the news...), and we should feel guilty for being white. The whole event culminated around a day of telling us that out Mommy's and Daddy's cars were going to cause the ice caps to melt and Florida to sink into the waves. That day even featured the infamous "Hockey Stick" graph, or at least one of its cousins. How they got away with this in a red state I will never know.
That winter was an especially cold, snowy one thanks to some peculiar El Nino patterns. Come spring, we were told that the harsh winter, featuring almost an entire month of snowdays and record setting cold temps (and earning me over the $1000 in snow shoveling revenue that bought me my first car that fall) was a result of global warming. Huh. Hotter temperatures made winter colder? Really?
Since then, my home region has been suffering on and off drought. Global warming? So they tell me, but a little research soon reveled that these on and off drought had been going on for centuries.
So much of the famous global warming research works on flawed premises. The "Hockey Stick" graph ended getting debunked accidentally by a guy who was trying to replicate the results. Turns out that a lot of data used was inaccurate, or based on flawed method, and that the model was constructed in such a way that it artificially inflated some numbers over others. Many current models don't properly take into effect considerations like the "Urban heat island effect" either. Cities are warmer than open country. Millions of tins of concrete, steel, and asphalt retain heat better than ground covered in grass or trees. As our cities and communities have grown, many rural weather monitoring stations have found themselves in suburban areas and cities, so they read higher temperatures. In addition, modernization of weather station equipment over the last few decades has led to more accurate temperature reading at more times throughout the day, which, compared to a few thermometer readings at dawn, noon and dusk, will create an artificial statistical heating trend.
Al Gore mentioned, in An Inconvenient Truth, and utter lack of articles refuting the global warming theory, yet I own two books featuring both pro and con articles, many of the articles written within the last decade.
It is true that as the issue progresses, less articles refuting the global warming theory are presented, but you must also realize that humans tend to be willing to do anything to avoid becoming socially ostracized, and, because scientists who don't force their research and conclusions to fit the current popular theory often get their funding pulled, many articles are written that end up never seeing the ink of a printing press. You never hear about the glaciers that are growing, do you? Some of them are... Of course, global warming is probably the culprit. (The glaciers are getting a head start on the ice that will be hot on the heels of, or rather cold on the heels of, the global warming's peak.
In addition to all of this, there is geological evidence to indicate that this is not the first, and probably won't be the last, time that global climate changes have occurred. The Great Plains of North America used to be a tropical sea, but now it's all semi-arid prairie. Global warming? Yes. A few million years ago. People also point to the increased aridization of land as evidence of global warming. Of course, if you cut down all the trees and plants in an are with little ground water (regardless of precipitation), the ground will become arid because the plants held what little moisture that was in the soil in the soil. People forget, too, that some areas featuring manmade forest have become less arid, and that areas subject to high irrigation (or even high lawn watering) have become less arid. Because Arizonans want green lawns, Arizona has become, and this shocked me when I first read this, less arid than it was 100 years ago.
Is the climate changing? Yes. Is that abnormal? No. Are we accelerating it? Possibly, but it's vain to think we're causing it.
That said, I ride a bicycle to work when weather allows, try to carpool when it doesn't, I have energy efficient CFL bulbs in all my light fixtures, I set my thermostat lower in the winter and higher in the summer. I bet my behavior seems out of tune with everything I just said, huh? Not at all. I'm into resource conservation and lower bills. My electricity bill is about 30% lower than most of my friends' bills and I spend half as much on gas as they do, and the electricity thing has nothing to do with resource conservation! I jsut like paying smaller bills! We have, in the U.S., enough coal to provide electricity for my lifetime, my children's lifetime, and possibly even their children's lifetime in our nation. Even now, our energy productions trends show a huge shift back to using coal to generate electricity. About half of the U.S.'s electricity is coal produced as it is.
I'd get started with the cons of most of our current alternative energy sources, but i think that debate deserves its own thread.
Well, that's my rant- take it or leave it.
For anyone wondering about the people who say the things I say....
I am a white, conservative Republican, Protestant, High School graduate with two Associates Degrees, male born and raised in rural America (except for about seven total years of my life spent in far-off, exciting lands in Europe and, more recently, Asia) between the ages of twenty and thirty. If you disagree with my opinion, that information right there is enough for any educated person to scoff at me and dismiss my ravings as uneducated, uninformed, and generally boring. :biggrin:
This has been fun. Usually when I try to talk about this topic, I get verbally assaulted and treated like I eat babies as soon as I voice my dissent. ^_^
Peace out, everyone.
Edit: Geez, I wrote an article so long it got a new page! I had no idea I was so opinionated on thsi topic!
On topic now.
I'm still not convinced of human-caused shift in global climates. When I was in Middle School, my school did this whole week of crazy, leftist propaganda telling us eating meat is wrong, fur is murder, gun-owners are evil, nuclear power (although safe) is bad, violence has no place on TV (except for the news...), and we should feel guilty for being white. The whole event culminated around a day of telling us that out Mommy's and Daddy's cars were going to cause the ice caps to melt and Florida to sink into the waves. That day even featured the infamous "Hockey Stick" graph, or at least one of its cousins. How they got away with this in a red state I will never know.
That winter was an especially cold, snowy one thanks to some peculiar El Nino patterns. Come spring, we were told that the harsh winter, featuring almost an entire month of snowdays and record setting cold temps (and earning me over the $1000 in snow shoveling revenue that bought me my first car that fall) was a result of global warming. Huh. Hotter temperatures made winter colder? Really?
Since then, my home region has been suffering on and off drought. Global warming? So they tell me, but a little research soon reveled that these on and off drought had been going on for centuries.
So much of the famous global warming research works on flawed premises. The "Hockey Stick" graph ended getting debunked accidentally by a guy who was trying to replicate the results. Turns out that a lot of data used was inaccurate, or based on flawed method, and that the model was constructed in such a way that it artificially inflated some numbers over others. Many current models don't properly take into effect considerations like the "Urban heat island effect" either. Cities are warmer than open country. Millions of tins of concrete, steel, and asphalt retain heat better than ground covered in grass or trees. As our cities and communities have grown, many rural weather monitoring stations have found themselves in suburban areas and cities, so they read higher temperatures. In addition, modernization of weather station equipment over the last few decades has led to more accurate temperature reading at more times throughout the day, which, compared to a few thermometer readings at dawn, noon and dusk, will create an artificial statistical heating trend.
Al Gore mentioned, in An Inconvenient Truth, and utter lack of articles refuting the global warming theory, yet I own two books featuring both pro and con articles, many of the articles written within the last decade.
It is true that as the issue progresses, less articles refuting the global warming theory are presented, but you must also realize that humans tend to be willing to do anything to avoid becoming socially ostracized, and, because scientists who don't force their research and conclusions to fit the current popular theory often get their funding pulled, many articles are written that end up never seeing the ink of a printing press. You never hear about the glaciers that are growing, do you? Some of them are... Of course, global warming is probably the culprit. (The glaciers are getting a head start on the ice that will be hot on the heels of, or rather cold on the heels of, the global warming's peak.
In addition to all of this, there is geological evidence to indicate that this is not the first, and probably won't be the last, time that global climate changes have occurred. The Great Plains of North America used to be a tropical sea, but now it's all semi-arid prairie. Global warming? Yes. A few million years ago. People also point to the increased aridization of land as evidence of global warming. Of course, if you cut down all the trees and plants in an are with little ground water (regardless of precipitation), the ground will become arid because the plants held what little moisture that was in the soil in the soil. People forget, too, that some areas featuring manmade forest have become less arid, and that areas subject to high irrigation (or even high lawn watering) have become less arid. Because Arizonans want green lawns, Arizona has become, and this shocked me when I first read this, less arid than it was 100 years ago.
Is the climate changing? Yes. Is that abnormal? No. Are we accelerating it? Possibly, but it's vain to think we're causing it.
That said, I ride a bicycle to work when weather allows, try to carpool when it doesn't, I have energy efficient CFL bulbs in all my light fixtures, I set my thermostat lower in the winter and higher in the summer. I bet my behavior seems out of tune with everything I just said, huh? Not at all. I'm into resource conservation and lower bills. My electricity bill is about 30% lower than most of my friends' bills and I spend half as much on gas as they do, and the electricity thing has nothing to do with resource conservation! I jsut like paying smaller bills! We have, in the U.S., enough coal to provide electricity for my lifetime, my children's lifetime, and possibly even their children's lifetime in our nation. Even now, our energy productions trends show a huge shift back to using coal to generate electricity. About half of the U.S.'s electricity is coal produced as it is.
I'd get started with the cons of most of our current alternative energy sources, but i think that debate deserves its own thread.
Well, that's my rant- take it or leave it.
For anyone wondering about the people who say the things I say....
I am a white, conservative Republican, Protestant, High School graduate with two Associates Degrees, male born and raised in rural America (except for about seven total years of my life spent in far-off, exciting lands in Europe and, more recently, Asia) between the ages of twenty and thirty. If you disagree with my opinion, that information right there is enough for any educated person to scoff at me and dismiss my ravings as uneducated, uninformed, and generally boring. :biggrin:This has been fun. Usually when I try to talk about this topic, I get verbally assaulted and treated like I eat babies as soon as I voice my dissent. ^_^
Peace out, everyone.
Edit: Geez, I wrote an article so long it got a new page! I had no idea I was so opinionated on thsi topic!
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