Burning a Hole in My Boxers.....
Ok folks, I just couldn't resist any longer. I know that I already made two lengthy posts today but here is another one for you.
Gore is releasing his new film and it focuses on Global Warming. I saw the trailer for this at the movie theater and noticed that even in the trailer there are multiple inaccuracies and outright lies. Now, if you believe in Global Warming then good for you. Some people on drugs believe that they can fly but that doesn't keep them out of the hospital after a 3rd floor leap off the balcony.
What I don't believe in is Global Warming as an event that is happening. I don't believe in using this as a fear tactic, or for political leverage, but that is happening. I DO believe that our climate is changing. I also believe that mankind has the potential to have a profound impact on our environment and that we should study this more closely. Becoming aware of how we impact our environment is not a bad thing. If you can admit that you believe in Global Warming, but don't know any of the science to back it up then you are one step closer to not being a "sheeple."
Credible scientist are aware that we cannot possibly and accurately predict climate change and what impact it has on our environment. Remember the predictions of Gore and his team during the time of the Kyoto Treaty? Does it surprise you to look back on that and realize that none of those predictions came true?
Read on if you dare...... here are the things you will not hear about from people that advocate Global Warming.
Myth 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
Fact: For the atmosphere as a whole, accurate satellite, balloon and long-term mountain top measurements have observed no increase at all.
Average ground station readings show a mild warming over the last 100 years, but well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. Further, the majority of stations are located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands") which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").
To further emphasize this the city of NY has increased in temperature (though surprisingly very little) while Syracuse the temperature has decreased. They are only about 200 miles apart.
Myth 2: The “hockey stick” graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
Fact: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 100to 120000 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average" global temperature has been rising at a rate of 0.6 to 0.8 degrees Celsius per 100 years; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare. The hockey stick not only ignores historical fact, but is also scientifically flawed. The guy who wrote the algorithm admittedly injected information to skew the data.
Myth 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.
Fact: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. The CO2 increase was only 0.4% over the last 50 years, rather than the 5% per 100 years quoted by Kyoto. However, as measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this. There is solid evidence that as temperatures rise naturally and cyclically, the earth naturally produces more CO2 as a result.
Myth 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
Fact: Water vapor or clouds, which makes up on average about 3 % of the atmosphere, is the major greenhouse gas. CO2 makes up only about 3% of the greenhouse gases, or about 0.03% of the atmosphere. Moreover, because of its molecular weight and absorptive capacity, water vapor is 3000 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.
Myth 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.
Fact: Unfortunately, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of including the effects of the sun and the clouds. Further, the main cause of temperature variation is the sun. Its radiation changes all the time, partly in cyclical fashion. The number of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which is CO2.
Myth 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
Fact: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
- “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
- “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to ………..man–made causes”
Myth 7: CO2 is a pollutant.
Fact: This is absolutely not true. In fact, CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth and its intake causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously.
Myth 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.
Fact: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density and escalating development value.
Myth 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.
Fact: Glaciers have been receding for hundreds of years; thatÂ’s because we are still coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. ItÂ’s normal.
Myth 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.
Fact: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, but the eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling.
So now I am done for the day. I think I have posted enough. I hope that you are enlightened and will go find the answers for yourself.
14 comments:
I am pretty sure that we are going to warm up no matter what we do. The earth used to be covered with ice. Most of the ice has melted, except for the 2 poles. They are slowly melting too. The sun is beating down on the earth and there is nothing we can do short of setting up some massive reflectors to guide the sun's rays away from the poles. Woe to any birds that fly between the reflectors and the sun!!! I guess we could call Magnito and see if he could help us, no wait, Magnito's a comic book character! It's hard for me here in the SF bay Area to believe in global warming, it's alwys foggy and cold here.It's starnge that the people that don't care about abortions are worrying about the unborn polar bears of the supposed future.
Well there are two factors to consider, we are technically coming out of an ice age (that will last well beyond our life times).
And 2 - the poles are not melting over-all. Some parts of them are melting, some parts of them are freezing and expanding. It's not like an ice-cube that sits on the counter and melts.
Too cold in SF? I am sure you can find someone to keep ya warm!
10 MYTHS about Global Warming
Don't believe these commonly heard statements:
* It isn't really happening (documented science overwhelmingly shows temperatures rising rapidly)
* It's natural (temperature increases, especially since the 1970's, are far above natural variations)
* Any effects well be very gradual (not only are severe storms getting stronger, but climate history shows sharp climate changes can occur abruptly, in only a few years)
* It does not affect the U.S. (the U.S. is experiencing rising sea levels, more severe storms and droughts, die-off of forests, altered animal migrations, and loss of glaciers such as those in Glacier National Park)
* It will be good for us (some areas may become more pleasantly warm, but the cost of negative effects will far outweigh any benefits; disease and heat deaths are increasing)
* Agriculture will benefit (CO2 may make some crops grow faster, but also will accelerate weeds, pests and droughts; crops may not grow well where they once did as climate zones shift.)
* It's being handled by our government (The current U.S. Administration advocates studying, not dealing with, global warming; its energy policy completely based on burning more coal & oil. Most state and local governments are unprepared for major changes)
* It's not a big deal compared to national security (Global warming is actually the most serious threat to the widest range of human concerns. Our national and world security is directly threatened by negative climate effects on weather, water supply, disease, agriculture, marine resources, and health)
* Technology will solve the problem for us (Massive "fixes" like burying greenhouse gases are very unlikely, but many smaller changes can make a difference AND are available now)
* There's nothing to be done anyway (Everyone can make a difference today -- SEE BELOW...)
15 Very Important Things to Do about Global Warming...from the individual to the national
1. Learn about it -- start with this Web site and see the References
2. Sell the SUV and choose cleaner, more efficient vehicles -- and reduce your airline travel, which pollutes more per passenger than cars.
3. Use efficient appliances, replace light bulbs, insulate 4. Buy renewable energy, like wind and solar
5. Organize the neighborhood and town for energy efficiency
6. Use your vote and influence as a citizen to elect responsive leaders
7. Encourage efficient transportation in & between communities
8. Plant trees, expand open spaces
9. Reduce sprawl and the paving of the landscape
10. Build for efficiency and solar power
11. Support sustainable farming and forestry
12. Reduce global deforestation
13. Develop an efficient energy policy, moving away from fossil fuels
14. Export new energy technology that uses renewable energy sources
15. ....and Start doing these things today
http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/actions.html
Their "myths" seem to be your "facts". Ain't it always the case. There's always 8 sides (at least) to every story.
Yes, climate change does constantly fluctuate (constantly in terms of eternal time . . . could take thousands of years for a flutuation), and there have been many ice ages and then warmer ages as far as "scientists" can determine from their methods of examining the earth's history.
It's not that the earth is coming out of a Little Ice Age (some areas were still cooling in the 10th Century), it's the rapidity which which ice is melting all over the place. Yes we need CO2, but we need it in proportion to oxygen, not in place of oxygen.
If you look at the intricate web of life on this planet, it's pretty obvious that acid rain, forest destruction, rainforest destruction, river pollution, air pollution (especially in the developing countries where industry has no constraints whatsoever) . . . all this pollution leads to the destruction of that delicate balance which of course helps the climate change rapidly.
Of course, the earth will always be here. Lots of other species have died off in it's millions of years existence. The earth's climate may change to one that is uninhabitable for this strange little species, but the earth won't die. Only the species that need the earth to be in a particular balance will die. The earth will probably rejoice when it gets rid of this silly little species, though I'm sure the earth has been highly entertained by us. Yet in the end, we are so predictable in our little wounded egos and desire for stuff, and ignorance of our ecological and spiritual habitats.
Well, c'est la vie. Or should that be c'est la non-vie?
Great post! I'd have to ask you to show me the data that supports your first point. I can find plenty of data that supports isolated warming, but not over-all warming.
Most of the rest of your post supports climate change and shifts, but not over-all global warming.
I think that you and I both agree that this needs more research and that we, as a species, need to be more cognitively aware of how we affect our environment.
Who really cares if it's global warming or climate change? The point is, if we don't clean up our act, Nature is going to toss us in the dustbin of history and move on to the next group of species.
Whether we cause global warming or merely accelerate it, the world as we know it being demolished in the name of business. Culture is business is culture is business is culture is business is culture is business.
What a boring species we've become. Where's the soaring spirit? Where's the intense rapture of a gentle breeze amongst the lilacs under expansive blue skies in the midst of an original thought?
Sheesh. The chimps must be SO embarrassed to be our closest kin.
And now, off to my African drum class.
I care! I care because one is implying that mankind is causing all of this and misrepresenting facts in order to achieve a political and social agenda. The other is indicative that the earth has been going through changes for millions of years and while we do have an effect on our planet it is isolated and not the big catestrophic event that people are saying that it is.
BTW - how is the drum class? That would be very cool.
But it IS as catastrophic. If we continue to pollute oceans, rivers and streams, pollute the soil AND desecrate the very seeds that give us plants to eat (modifying them so that that are infertile and the farmer has to buy new seeds all the time means taking the life-force nutrition out of the food and making it less digestible). No fish, no plant life . . . livestock fed with hormones and anitbiotics . . . we are destroying our food supply. We are destroying the forests that are part of regulating temperature and rainfall. We are destroying the air. It IS certain that we are contributing greatly to global warming.
That is not catastrophic to you? If that's not catastrophic, then what the hell is?
Yes, climate shifts continually on every planet, as we live in an organic multiverse that never ceases to change. But we don't have to push these changes.
I guess it doesn't really matter though. Billions of years from now the sun will explode, and poof, there goes earth and your children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's
children.
As for the drum class, I went to a different place. Remember the booth at the fair where I almost bought that drum cheaply? I went to that guys place, but NO ONE WAS THERE. It's in the same part of town as the dance class. I feel certain that I will make these connections in the near future. It's just a matter of patience, something I have so little of today.
Catastrophic? What part of it is catastrophic? The earth has been through far more dramatic shifts in climate (without man's intervention) and yet we survived. How is it catastrophic?
Rising sea rates? Some research suggests that the sea rose approximately 120 meters about 18,000 years ago....then slowed down. The current rate is approximately 1 ~ 3 millimeters / yr. (Sarcasm ON) Surely the toxins we spewed into the atmosphere 18,000 years ago was the cause of this. Global Warming started even then. (Sarcasm off) We must also take into account the shifting landmasses. It's not fair to say the sea rose if it was the land that fell (New Orleans anyone?). The sea is still at one of the lowest point it's ever been in known history. It only has one way to go and that is up. Oh I know, the poles are going to melt and the sea will rise 20 feet, right? Ummm....which poles are melting? Because data shows that some parts are melting and some are growing. How does a pole grow? By freezing water.
You may recall from history that a huge portion of Northern American was underwater. Mankind seemed to do just fine, and without all the technology we have today.
I, for one, am not going to buy into the political fear mongering that is taking place regarding the issue of Global Warming.
I may be wrong. But I might not be, either. My contention is that if people want me to buy into Global Warming as a serious threat then they are going to have to prove it because there is way too much data to suggest that this is all part of our dynamic planet and not a catastrophic event that should be leveraged as a political or social tool.
Okay, don't buy into it. But, that means you have to stay on the polluted parts of the planet and not join us who work to make things green and unpolluted. If you don't do the work, you don't get to live there.
We survived certain things, but our species if very, very young as a species, and we are destroying our econiche. I know we humans tend to feel we are the one's in control and that we own the landscape and can do with it as we please.
But here in the reality-based community, we realize that we are part of the landscape, part of the intricate web that affords this species life, not separate from it.
This is also the attitude of most people's who have lived in harmony with the landscape. It's only with Judao/Christinity/Islam that humans start thinking they have dominion over the landscape.
Yes, the earth will survive. But this species may not. Even now asthma, respiratory problems, cancers, and auto-immune problems are occurring in EPIDEMIC proportions.
You say there is way too much data to suggest this is all part of our dyamic planet, but the data I provided suggests the opposite, that we are accelerating the problem, and in many instances creating it. I provided SOURCES for my data. You did not?
Everyone source I find says that the majority of scientist agree we are contributing to and causing global warming.
WE KNOW that all the logging, acid rain, pollution has destroyed a huge amount of forests (including rainforests), far more than would normally occur. We know that forests are a very necessary part of keeping the earth in balance with enough greenery to create the oxygen we need. We know that forest depletion results in heat and lack of rainfall and cooling agents.
We know what lands that got de-treed (new word) and de-forested look like now (in place of the Cedars of Lebenon (spelling?) of the bible we now have desert).
Hello? It's not rocket surgery. Just looking at deforetation issues alone leads to human-caused global warming.
For one thing, we have to work on population control, because that's causing people to keep moving the boundaries of the rainforests of the world because they need land. Rainforests are a major, majoy source of climate control and oxygen. It's imperative to save our rainforests, and the species and plants in them.
We've yet to tap the majority of healing agents in those plants. We're just learning about them.
Have fun in Europe. And don't destroy any trees while yr over there.
I will be happy to post some sources when I have a little more time to compile them. I am not drawing my figures from thin air.
As for the rain forest, you could wipe them ALL off the of the face of the planet and there would still be plenty of O2. A common misconception is that most of our O2 comes from them. It doesn't. It comes from the oceans (would increasing the sea level increase O2 output?). Not that I advocate destroying rain forests, it's already been shown that wiping them out has other fairly severe consequences.
And again, I'll stess that I am against pollution. I am for learning about our environment and trying to protect it.
Oh yeah, I had been meaning to post this for a while but hadn't gotten around to it, yet. This is directly from Michael Crichton's web site. Being that he is an author, I think he is able to convey this particular sentiment much better than I possibly can. So rather than reinvent the wheel, please give this a read:
Direct from Crichton's Site:
Why Politicized Science is Dangerous
(Excerpted from State of Fear)
Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out.
This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms.
I don't mean global warming. I'm talking about another theory, which rose to prominence a century ago.
Its supporters included Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Winston Churchill. It was approved by Supreme Court justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, who ruled in its favor. The famous names who supported it included Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; activist Margaret Sanger; botanist Luther Burbank; Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University; the novelist H. G. Wells; the playwright George Bernard Shaw; and hundreds of others. Nobel Prize winners gave support. Research was backed by the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations. The Cold Springs Harbor Institute was built to carry out this research, but important work was also done at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Legislation to address the crisis was passed in states from New York to California.
These efforts had the support of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, and the National Research Council. It was said that if Jesus were alive, he would have supported this effort.
All in all, the research, legislation and molding of public opinion surrounding the theory went on for almost half a century. Those who opposed the theory were shouted down and called reactionary, blind to reality, or just plain ignorant. But in hindsight, what is surprising is that so few people objected.
Today, we know that this famous theory that gained so much support was actually pseudoscience. The crisis it claimed was nonexistent. And the actions taken in the name of theory were morally and criminally wrong. Ultimately, they led to the deaths of millions of people.
The theory was eugenics, and its history is so dreadful --- and, to those who were caught up in it, so embarrassing --- that it is now rarely discussed. But it is a story that should be well know to every citizen, so that its horrors are not repeated.
The theory of eugenics postulated a crisis of the gene pool leading to the deterioration of the human race. The best human beings were not breeding as rapidly as the inferior ones --- the foreigners, immigrants, Jews, degenerates, the unfit, and the "feeble minded." Francis Galton, a respected British scientist, first speculated about this area, but his ideas were taken far beyond anything he intended. They were adopted by science-minded Americans, as well as those who had no interest in science but who were worried about the immigration of inferior races early in the twentieth century --- "dangerous human pests" who represented "the rising tide of imbeciles" and who were polluting the best of the human race.
The eugenicists and the immigrationists joined forces to put a stop to this. The plan was to identify individuals who were feeble-minded --- Jews were agreed to be largely feeble-minded, but so were many foreigners, as well as blacks --- and stop them from breeding by isolation in institutions or by sterilization.
As Margaret Sanger said, "Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty … there is not greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles." She spoke of the burden of caring for "this dead weight of human waste."
Such views were widely shared. H.G. Wells spoke against "ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens." Theodore Roosevelt said that "Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind." Luther Burbank" "Stop permitting criminals and weaklings to reproduce." George Bernard Shaw said that only eugenics could save mankind.
There was overt racism in this movement, exemplified by texts such as "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy" by American author Lothrop Stoddard. But, at the time, racism was considered an unremarkable aspect of the effort to attain a marvelous goal --- the improvement of humankind in the future. It was this avant-garde notion that attracted the most liberal and progressive minds of a generation. California was one of twenty-nine American states to pass laws allowing sterilization, but it proved the most-forward-looking and enthusiastic --- more sterilizations were carried out in California than anywhere else in America.
Eugenics research was funded by the Carnegie Foundation, and later by the Rockefeller Foundation. The latter was so enthusiastic that even after the center of the eugenics effort moved to Germany, and involved the gassing of individuals from mental institutions, the Rockefeller Foundation continued to finance German researchers at a very high level. (The foundation was quiet about it, but they were still funding research in 1939, only months before the onset of World War II.)
Since the 1920s, American eugenicists had been jealous because the Germans had taken leadership of the movement away from them. The Germans were admirably progressive. They set up ordinary-looking houses where "mental defectives" were brought and interviewed one at a time, before being led into a back room, which was, in fact, a gas chamber. There, they were gassed with carbon monoxide, and their bodies disposed of in a crematorium located on the property.
Eventually, this program was expanded into a vast network of concentration camps located near railroad lines, enabling the efficient transport and of killing ten million undesirables.
After World War II, nobody was a eugenicist, and nobody had ever been a eugenicist. Biographers of the celebrated and the powerful did not dwell on the attractions of this philosophy to their subjects, and sometimes did not mention it at all. Eugenics ceased to be a subject for college classrooms, although some argue that its ideas continue to have currency in disguised form.
But in retrospect, three points stand out. First, despite the construction of Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory, despite the efforts of universities and the pleadings of lawyers, there was no scientific basis for eugenics. In fact, nobody at that time knew what a gene really was. The movement was able to proceed because it employed vague terms never rigorously defined. "Feeble-mindedness" could mean anything from poverty to illiteracy to epilepsy. Similarly, there was no clear definition of "degenerate" or "unfit."
Second, the eugenics movement was really a social program masquerading as a scientific one. What drove it was concern about immigration and racism and undesirable people moving into one's neighborhood or country. Once again, vague terminology helped conceal what was really going on.
Third, and most distressing, the scientific establishment in both the United States and Germany did not mount any sustained protest. Quite the contrary. In Germany scientists quickly fell into line with the program. Modern German researchers have gone back to review Nazi documents from the 1930s. They expected to find directives telling scientists what research should be done. But none were necessary. In the words of Ute Deichman, "Scientists, including those who were not members of the [Nazi] party, helped to get funding for their work through their modified behavior and direct cooperation with the state." Deichman speaks of the "active role of scientists themselves in regard to Nazi race policy … where [research] was aimed at confirming the racial doctrine … no external pressure can be documented." German scientists adjusted their research interests to the new policies. And those few who did not adjust disappeared.
A second example of politicized science is quite different in character, but it exemplifies the hazard of government ideology controlling the work of science, and of uncritical media promoting false concepts. Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a self-promoting peasant who, it was said, "solved the problem of fertilizing the fields without fertilizers and minerals." In 1928 he claimed to have invented a procedure called vernalization, by which seeds were moistened and chilled to enhance the later growth of crops.
Lysenko's methods never faced a rigorous test, but his claim that his treated seeds passed on their characteristics to the next generation represented a revival of Lamarckian ideas at a time when the rest of the world was embracing Mendelian genetics. Josef Stalin was drawn to Lamarckian ideas, which implied a future unbounded by hereditary constraints; he also wanted improved agricultural production. Lysenko promised both, and became the darling of a Soviet media that was on the lookout for stories about clever peasants who had developed revolutionary procedures.
Lysenko was portrayed as a genius, and he milked his celebrity for all it was worth. He was especially skillful at denouncing this opponents. He used questionnaires from farmers to prove that vernalization increased crop yields, and thus avoided any direct tests. Carried on a wave of state-sponsored enthusiasm, his rise was rapid. By 1937, he was a member of the Supreme Soviet.
By then, Lysenko and his theories dominated Russian biology. The result was famines that killed millions, and purges that sent hundreds of dissenting Soviet scientists to the gulags or the firing squads. Lysenko was aggressive in attacking genetics, which was finally banned as "bourgeois pseudoscience" in 1948. There was never any basis for Lysenko's ideas, yet he controlled Soviet research for thirty years. Lysenkoism ended in the 1960s, but Russian biology still has not entirely recovered from that era.
Now we are engaged in a great new theory that once again has drawn the support of politicians, scientists, and celebrities around the world. Once again, the theory is promoted by major foundations. Once again, the research is carried out at prestigious universities. Once again, legislation is passed and social programs are urged in its name. Once again, critics are few and harshly dealt with.
Once again, the measures being urged have little basis in fact or science. Once again, groups with other agendas are hiding behind a movement that appears high-minded. Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions. Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences. Once again, vague terms like sustainability and generational justice --- terms that have no agreed definition --- are employed in the service of a new crisis.
I am not arguing that global warming is the same as eugenics. But the similarities are not superficial. And I do claim that open and frank discussion of the data, and of the issues, is being suppressed. Leading scientific journals have taken strong editorial positions of the side of global warming, which, I argue, they have no business doing. Under the circumstances, any scientist who has doubts understands clearly that they will be wise to mute their expression.
One proof of this suppression is the fact that so many of the outspoken critics of global warming are retired professors. These individuals are not longer seeking grants, and no longer have to face colleagues whose grant applications and career advancement may be jeopardized by their criticisms.
In science, the old men are usually wrong. But in politics, the old men are wise, counsel caution, and in the end are often right.
The past history of human belief is a cautionary tale. We have killed thousands of our fellow human beings because we believed they had signed a contract with the devil, and had become witches. We still kill more than a thousand people each year for witchcraft. In my view, there is only one hope for humankind to emerge from what Carl Sagan called "the demon-haunted world" of our past. That hope is science.
But as Alston Chase put it, "when the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power."
That is the danger we now face. And this is why the intermixing of science and politics is a bad combination, with a bad history. We must remember the history, and be certain that what we present to the world as knowledge is disinterested and honest.
Another great article. This one was in 1974. I was only three, but I apparently should have been preparing for the next ice age. Amazing how these same people are now touting global warming.
http://www.junkscience.com/mar06/Time_AnotherIceAge_June241974.pdf
Brad-
Am reading your site for the first time- very interesting young man you are- i think there's a lot Matt and I didn't know about you buddy :) Anyways, i am slowly making my way up to your Europe posts and pics, but had to stop here and recommend "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton. I think you would really like this book (you may have already read it, but it totally supports everything you have written here and also gives real data and sources that you can look up). Can't wait to hang out with you when you get back dude!
Call us, and hurry up!
Jen
There are probably a lot of things about me that most people don't know about. I'm a fairly private individual. Writing on here is not the easiest thing in the world for me, but I am getting some perverse enjoyment out of it.
BTW - I read the Chrichton book, and even recommend reading it somewhere on here (maybe in a comment?). Excellent book and excellent resources.
I'll look forward to some beverages with you, Matt, and Margo when I get back. Take care, Jen
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