Because some people don't understand how an earth warming cycle looks I have included a highly technical schematic as part of my blog today.
On the top line of the drawing we are looking at a warming and cooling trend on the earth that has a period of around 20,000 years. While my drawing isn't based on specific data this is pretty much what it looks like. You can find the real 12,000 year span on Wikipedia.
The second line is a magnification of one 10,000 year section through which time we cycle down to a cool era and are heading up. This is what we call an ice age. Not a "little ice age." A full blown ice age.
The third line represents a 2,500 year time span and when you get this close to the data it gets much harder to figure out what is going on.
I then drew a one hundred year stretch with a very steep upward trend. The real data shows a very steep upward trend, changing higher upwards than anyone has ever seen since the last ice age. The problem is we can't reconstruct the data going any further back. So it leaves people guessing what is going to happen. People who are convinced that humans are the cause for this trend jump up and down swearing that the curve will go up forever, swamping all of the the world's low lands in the process.
My undergraduate is in Geology and a student once asked the professor if he believed that there was global warming and if we were causing it. He pointed to the same data I layed out and then sidestepped the issue by pointing out that whether or not you agree on the cause, man is running a global science experiment. We are converting all of our fossil fuels into Carbon dioxide, heat, water, and a few other nasties. So, whether or not you agree that man is the cause, the data shows a phenominal uptick in the OVERALL global temperature.
Being a geologist and used to thinking in terms of Millions...and Billions of years, I personally think that even if we humans are supplying our inputs, our impact or even a major change in our behavior will not change what the earth has done forever. And that is be a huge chemistry lab where oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water are the main chemical reactants.
Anyone that claims catagorically that man is the main cause for global warming has left the realm of science and entered the realm of politics. A realm that in order to look like a hero, you've got to create the problem you are going to solve first.
8 comments:
Pat,
you're a genius! I've been thinking about this alot lately. I couldn't really decide if all the talk was a real problem or not. Then even if it is a real problem, (which if I catch your points, it isn't) what if it is all part of a bigger plan? Maybe we people are part of the problem, but really we are just along for the ride in a much bigger issue. What do you think?
Pat,
Readers digest version, Man is not capable of doing what is claimed by the Global Warming Crowd? That the “Global Warming” has more to do with the earth and god than man? Unfortunately this really does not fit well with Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.
that's because Al Gore had to jump on some sort of bandwagon to get his 30 seconds of glory.
weren't there claims of an impending ice-age in the 30's or 40's. Just proof that it's cyclical.
Good post, ppj
Kor and Pietvan,
I certainly believe that there is a bigger plan and its good to know the science behind the hoopla so that you can speak intelligently to the political activists that would have you pay a sin tax for electricity.
We also have stewardship over this planet, and if there is a possibility that we are polluting it to death, that possibility deserves our scrutiny.
After all is said and done the Lord of the vinyard required a return on his investment, the steward that buried the talent in the earth had it taken away.
Wow, touch on a controversial subject and you draw all kinds of commenters bro. Maybe I should try that.
There are so many factors in this equation out of human control (i.e. sun spots, solar flares, volcanic activity) that to make a definitive judgement that man can even impact this phenomenon shows ignorance. Are we doing things differently? Yes. COULD our actions be having an impact? Most likely. Is there ANYONE that can honestly quantify that impact? NO.
Plus, its not all bad news, just look at the myriad of new species they are discovering in Antarctic where the Larson Ice Shelf collapsed. I mean, how cool is a psychedelic octopus?
Good post but remember you are dealing with members of a new faith - Environmentalism- infidel dissenters will not be tolerated.
Well, at school they have a whole section just on global warming and how it is affecting the environment, so I don't know if it si real or not. It seems if they would take school time to talk about it it must be at least a little important.
But then agian, maybe it is just part of the big plan. But then, if people work together and us less fossil fuels and such, we can prolong it, if it is not ment to be stopped.
Well Karina, Global Warming is going to be a major issue in your future. Having obtained my degree in Environmental Studies and Planning and a minor in Biology, I can tell you that the evidence is vast and compelling, and OLD. I learned all this over 13 years ago while still in college and scientists have been discussing it for decades. The only thing that has changed is that now the piles of data on this issue has increased and only support the basic concept: our polluting habits are changing the planet and warming it up. But you should do your own research and use reliable sources.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has great links to the subject on their website: www.nasa.gov The people that try and say that global warming isn’t happening can’t prove any of their points. Because the issue is complex it’s easy to for them to toss up a lot of scientific jargon to the average folk so as to confuse the issue. But that doesn’t fool anyone with a REAL background in science. Scientist understand how the scientific method works and when they have a theory they publish it for review. Gravity is an excepted fact: HOW it works is a theory but the data is solid enough that we launch spaceships into orbit and have put men on the moon. Global warming is a fact and the current, accepted, mainstream view supported by extensive amounts of data support the theory that the problem is man made.
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