Jim,
I have been reluctant to comment on the climate change hysteria, but the recent letter by Hawaiian K was too much. There are several important facts to remember on this topic: 1) We don’t have enough data to determine whether we are in a long-term warming trend, or in a counter-cyclical move in a long term cooling trend. Lot’s of people have ‘data’ but no ‘facts’ have been established. Remember in the 1970’s how the next ice age was right around the corner? 2) Even if we do happen to be in a warming trend at the moment, there is no causal connection between the activities of man, and the warming itself. Lots of circumstantial ‘evidence’, but no causal connection. The earth is warming, and there is more CO2 in the air. Which causes which? Maybe there is a third factor, or fourth, or a hundredth!!! There may be some kind of correlation between CO2 and atmospheric temperature, but that does not mean that one causes the other. The environment is an extremely complex, dynamic system and to think that there is a straight-forward, reasonably linear relationship between the levels of one compound in the air and the overall temperature of the entire atmosphere is simplistic in the extreme. Heck, these guys can barely tell what the weather will be like next week, and we are supposed to think that they can tell us what will happen in 100 years? 3) The entire environmentalist movement is about control, nothing else. Environmentalism is a topic one group of people have used, repeatedly and successfully, to get governments around the world to implement social programs that sacrifice people in order to save bugs and weeds. Obviously these programs are detrimental to individual freedoms. A clue to the true intent of the ‘movement’ is contained in the language they use. Even Hawaiian K called the rational, objective scientists who have not bought in to the collective dogma of global warming, ‘climate change deniers’. Clearly this language is intended to imply that these guys are the same kind of whack jobs as the ‘holocaust deniers’ and should be treated as such. There have been stories recently about scientists who are losing their jobs because they haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid, and even talk of laws to make ‘climate change denial’ a crime! Clearly, anyone who needs the force of law to protect their pet theory cannot defend it against rigorous science in the open market. Will we soon have a Global Warming Inquisition? The truth does not need a law to defend it. And if you think this is just an American thing, you are wrong. I spent a couple of weeks in Canada since the UN report came out, and they are getting it bad up there! 24/7 coverage of how we are all about to fry in our own juices while there is a negative 30 degree wind chill outside. (Just so everyone knows, I am an ‘Elvis is dead denier’ and a ‘Loch Ness monster denier’ but please try to keep it quiet.)
Obviously, survivalists want to plan for as many potential outcomes as they can, and I am not discouraging anyone from taking the steps that they think they need to take to protect their families. I would just encourage people to examine the motives of climate change proponents from the standpoint of the harm that the environmentalist movement has caused, the individual rights they have denied, and the outcomes that they have desired and produced in recent decades. – M.W.A..
Dear Jim,
The energy involved in raising the oceans “a few degrees” to effect a sea-level increase would almost involve the Sun going nova. I can calculate it if you like.
The Antarctic ice cap is growing, so there’s no increase in water level from there.
The current climate trends are available online and show a steadying of the climate the last decade.
To suggest that the Medieval Warm Period is the mistake of one scientist is insane. It’s documented from ice core samples, and the fact that Viking era farms in Greenland are melting out of the ice cap as we speak. Not to mention the northern hunting grounds and other sites the Norse used were, until quite recently, pack ice. Then there’s all those records from the timeframe involved, documenting the plants, harvests, weather, etc.
That strikes me as more hand waving by the catastrophists. I had a detailed debate with a student of this, an earnest young man in grad school, who pointed me to “one of the best papers on the subject.” The paper was full of “It seems to me”s and “I feel”s, an admission that when satellite data was inconclusive, just because it didn’t contradict the assumptions made, it could be assumed the assumptions were correct (the data didn’t support the assumptions, either), and a statement that any climate studies done before 1990 were “politically motivated” (Aren’t they all?) and therefore suspect.
So, by the admission of a shoddily written article that’s purported by a student to be “one of the best,” the field is less than two decades old.
Now, how long have physicists and astronomers been trying to describe the universe?
I’m certainly concerned about long term effects to the environment, and storms can cause damage lasting weeks, trends damage lasting years…but I’m about as worried about a catastrophic climate failure as I am about aliens landing. It’s a huge planet and system, and people are very small. Let’s not, religious or not, give ourselves too much credit in the face of God’s greatness. – Michael Z. Williamson