An Inconvenient Truth

[the Langolier]

I'd really like to be convinced why I should be worried about global warming, because I am not. In fact, I think it's a silly and unfoundend concern. At first, I just didn't care. Then I read the latest book by my favorite author, State of Fear. It was actually more like a research paper with a plot thrown into it. Although it was about radical environmentalists being bad, the real enemy of the novel was Ted, the actor. I have determined that I can trust Michael Crichton and his opinion because he has done the research. At the end of State of Fear in his Author's Message, he gives a synopsis of the issue of global warming as he sees it after completing his book. Here's a few important ideea:

*We are also in the midst of a natural warming trend that began about 1850, as we emerged from a four-hundred-year old cold spell known as the "Little Ice Age."

*Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend might be a natural phenomenon.

*Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend might be man-made.

*Nobody knows how much warming will occur in the next century. The computer models vary by 400 percent, de facto proof that nobody knows. But if I had to guess --- the only thing anyone is doing, really --- I would guess the increase will be 0.812436 degrees C. There is no evidence that my guess about the state of the world one hundred years from now is any better or worse than anyone else's. (We can't "assess" the future, nor can we "predict" it. These are euphemisms. We can only guess. And informed guess is just a guess.)

[Note: he has also brought up the issue of the reliability of the computer "modeling" in other speeches of his. The reasons should only be obvious.]

*The current near-hysterical preoccupation with safety is at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism. Public education is desperately needed.

*I suspect that part of the observed surface warming will ultimately be attributable to human activity. I suspect that the principal human effect will come from land use, and that the atmospheric component will be minor.

The point is that there is no scientific fact that concludes global warming is a problem, especially as serious as the progoganda would have us to believe. There's no facts to say what is causing global warming and whether or not we can have an impact on it.

But really - who cares that the Earth will be 0.812436° C warmer in 100 years? In one day I experience changes of 30° F, and someone is telling me I should be worried by a change of <indeterminable>° C when I won't even be alive anymore? Can we not adapt to that? The whole thing is laughable to me. I am really not worried, but if it is REALLY an issue, than I would certainly be appreciative if someone could show me why.

Here's some other interesting tidbits:

The Impossibilty of Prediction - a speech by Michael Crichton focused on global warming.



Decarbonization has been occuring for over 150 years - a trend of decreasing the amount of carbon in our fuels, a main "supposed" cause of global warming by burning carbon which produces green house gasses, has been happening naturally for years.

Fear, Complexity, Environmental Management in the 21st Century - comprehending our ability to manage [model] complex systems and a review of our prior success in doing so with the debauchery of Yellowstone.

http://www.globalwarming.org