Is climate change all it's cracked up to be? Or is it just crackers?
December 17, 2006 ~ 12:12 p.m.
Al Gore loves to pontificate about global warming�but just what is "global warming," and what, if anything, can be done about it? Or is it just a ploy to scare us into paying higher taxes?
We should certainly do all we can to reduce carbon emissions, because it makes no sense to enlarge our "carbon footprint" without good reason. On that note, I often wonder how many of these global warming doomsayers actually turn off their computers after looking up the latest computer climate models? A surprising number of people leave their computers on permanent standby. That gives off carbon. A lot of it��"hundreds of thousands of tonnes of [it]," according to U.K. Environment Minister Elliot Morley, who has supported a European Union law to force manufacturers to make more energy-efficient electrical appliances. A large "carbon footprint" isn't even good for business, as it isn't cost-effective either.
However, carbon emissions produced by mankind are only part of the problem, not the entirety of it. Yet the crowd demanding action on climate change act as if it is mankind's sole doing, setting up false pretenses and severely risking the very good chance of not delivering on their promises, which can only mean the "global warming" scare, as they present it, is a farce. It's also a ploy that Al Gore and other politicians can use to hook gullible people into voting for them and supporting their agendas.
In Leif Erikson's day, the world climate was several degrees warmer than today�even higher than current worst-case global warming scenarios�and this warm spell lasted several centuries. In some parts, Greenland was actually green. Yet, human civilization thrived. This is not to say that Greenland didn't get cold or that it didn't have an ice cap 1,000 years ago. But it was a considerably milder place. Even during the 1100s, the weather was considerably balmier in Europe than it is today. Wine grapes are being succesfully grown in southwest England, but Dorset certainly isn't tropical and it barely even qualifies as subtropical. It has simply, over time, gotten that little bit warmer to allow grapes to grow. Just as they did in the 12th century. The day I see coconut palms growing outdoors in England is the day I'll start to worry.
Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body the global warming alarmists often cite, have declared that it cannot be proven that mankind is solely responsible for climate change. A recent climate change report of theirs had this to say:
�The Earth�s atmosphere-ocean dynamics is chaotic: its evolution is sensitive to small perturbations in initial conditions. This sensitivity limits our ability to predict the detailed evolution of weather; inevitable errors and uncertainties in the starting conditions of a weather forecast amplify through the forecast. As well as uncertainty in initial conditions, such predictions are also degraded by errors and uncertainties in our ability to represent accurately the significant climate processes.�
Duuuuude, what's up with that?!
Solar activity has a large say in our climate. When solar storms flare up, our climates are bound to change. It's just a fact, and there is absolutely nothing that mankind can do about it. Plus, as the IPCC pointed out, we do not fully understand the intricate dynamics of climate and weather patterns. There are still holes in geological and climatological theory that have yet to be filled and explained. We don't even fully understand our own oceans; we discover something new about them every day, or so it seems. And yet, we think we can accurately predict apocalyptic climate-change scenarios? We can state with authority that places like Morocco, Bombay and Hong Kong will be inhospitable by the end of this century? Please. Take a reality pill, everyone, and just calm down. (If anything, Bombay will become inhospitable from overpopulation.)
The climate started getting slowly warmer around 1900, scientists say. That was long before we had George W. Bush in the White House to blame for all our problems.
It does seem amazing that London had its warmest year on record. But "on record" is the salient point. We have only been keeping records since the 1600s, while the Earth was still recovering from a cold spell�the result of the Little Ice Age. If British weather records stretched back much further, we'd likely find a year that was much balmier. Several years. Actually, if climate change means that British summers will be hotter and last longer, you won't find me complaining. I couldn't be happier about it.
It would actually be better if Al Gore, George Clooney, Robert Kennedy Jr. and other environmentalists��who actually have the nerve to suggest that global warming is of greater concern than Islamofanatic terror as they did in Vanity Fair's "Green" issue of April 2006 (yeah, that makes sense, let's fret over a problem that we're only guessing at as opposed to a problem that we know for sure is a worldwide threat!)�concerned themselves with the land.
Recycling and solid waste management, for instance. How many people take that seriously? Not enough in my opinion. All the packaging that comes with food, toys and other products is totally unneccesary. You would think more people would be able to put two and two together, as in: "Wow, look at all this plastic" + "what's going to happen to it all?" = "we've got a real environmental issue at hand here!" But they don't. In fact, they probably just threw a lifetime's worth of plastic packaging away that came with their Home Climate Change Tracking Device.
I work in an office with a water cooler with a side tube for plastic cups. I can't tell you how many times a night I hear those plastic cups being yanked from their side holder. When you consider that there are re-usable mugs in the kitchen area to drink water from, there is no excuse for using these plastic cups that won't be recycled. But people don't think about that. They're too busy wondering why America won't endorse the Kyoto Treaty as they toss their seventeenth plastic cup of the night into their wastebasket.
I continue to be amazed not just by how much people throw out, but how little they care about it. Personally, I recycle nearly everything. Cardboard, paper, junk mail, glass, aluminum and tin cans and plastic milk bottles. We do have a recycling service in our area, but it handles only paper and glass. So, twice a week, I take two sacks full of trash half-a-mile up the hill to be placed in bins where I can recycle everything I collected. Name me one other person who is willing to go through as much work as I do to recycle so much. When we're losing land to landfills or to build incinerators, don't expect me to fret about a little climate change. That makes as much sense as watching a jihadist blow up a building and then saying, "Yeah, but what about those fundie Christians? They're the real problem!"
We all love looking at pretty Christmas lights in town centers. But does anyone ever stop to think about how much power they use up? It's downright frivolous. No-one needs pretty lights to have a merry Christmas, so why, when we're supposed to be so concerned over saving energy, do we still allow this?
This is why I just can't help but think that "global warming" is all smoke and mirrors. It was a great opportunity for Al Gore to tax us into oblivion if he got elected. Think about it: how many plane trips and limousine rides has this so-called environmental crusader taken to preach to the world about global warming? Hello, I think the lights are on but nobody's home. And that's not very environmentally responsible.
When it comes to the environment, just use common sense: Recycle. Ride a bike. Take public transportation. Shun consumerism and make do with what you've already got. Shut all lights and appliances off when you're not using them. Tell all your friends to please do likewise. And if you still feel nervous over global warming, then ask God to turn the sun down a bit. Then you've done all you can reasonably do.
Just don't make Al Gore into a modern-day messiah when he's just a power-hungry man, as all politicians tend to be. And that may just be the most "inconvenient truth" of all.
� M.E.M.
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