Global Warming - Facts? and Facts!
Thursday, November 08, 2007
A few facts???
Global Warming - Hoax or fact?
There are as many opinions about global warming and man’s part in it as there are politicians, climatologists, weather scientists, media people and bloggers on the subject. There is a great paucity of good solid scientific facts. Everyone with a political ax to grind, a grant to go after, readers or watchers to excite, an idea or position to sell, or who have just plain anger at something or someone, is getting in on the global warming bandwagon.
There are a few indisputable facts—or as indisputable as any "facts" can be. Remember, "One man’s fact is another man’s opinion and still another’s fantasy." That is because most facts are trumped by beliefs, a very human trait. These "facts" in consideration include:
1. Increasing the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to hold more heat.
2. Increasing the percentage of moisture in the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to hold more heat.
3. Increasing the percentage of methane in the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to hold more heat.
4. Increasing the percentage of any of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to hold more heat
5. Pouring a bucket of water into the ocean adds to the level of the oceans. How much depends on the size of the bucket and how many buckets are used.
6. Burning any fossil fuel adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
7. All animal life on land or in the seas adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
8. All green plant life on land or in the seas removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
9. Variation in the energy output of the sun affects global temperatures.
10. Variation in the circulation of the oceans affects the distribution of heat in the atmosphere.
11. Variation in galactic cosmic rays affects the amount of cloud cover over mostly tropic ocean water.
12. Variation of cloud cover affects global temperatures as clouds reflect the suns heat energy.
13. There are dozens of demonstrable natural systems that affect global temperatures as much or more than does the greenhouse effect. (The cosmic ray effect on cloud cover is just one)
14. Much of the period between 600 and 1100 CE was warmer than the current century.
15. These are but a few of the countless facts that affect climate and global temperatures.
16. Anecdotal reports of unusual local temperature and moisture conditions are completely useless as an indicator of global warming because of the huge scale of size and time differences between those reports and the global and millennia scales of climate changes.
17. In the 1970s after a series of very cold winters, a significant number of climatologists and other scientists were discussing global cooling and the coming ice age. The media and others reported this extensively to the great concern of the public. Since the winter 0f 2007-08 and its extreme cold and hordes of snowstorms, we're hearing the same kinds of rumbles.
Maybe Chicken Little was right.
All of this is amplified by our fascination with sound bites and short reports and lack of interest in lengthy, serious considerations of those same subjects. Most people simply lack the will or the time to do any in-depth reading or study about this very complex subject. Those who do such reading and study, and even research the subject have widely spread differences of opinion. This is the reason for such a controversy. Into this confusing mix come politicians and "expert" celebrities with huge agendas of their own who capitalize on this by arousing fear and other emotions in the all too gullible public.
With all this dust and smoke obscuring reality, even for those qualified to have a significant opinion, it is no wonder the fire is very hard to find if indeed it even exists. All this "smoke and mirrors" make for much confusion and those who live by emotional appeals make much use of the resulting disarray.
Here are two of the thousands of articles available from the Internet on the subject. They seem a bit more rational than many. Most are emotional diatribes driven by anger at ???
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22218
http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2007/06/weather-channel-backs-global-warming.html
The following has been on my blog, http://hjgulfstream.blogspot.com/ since the date shown. This short section has been added to that blog. ¶ 7:59 AM 0 Comments
There are as many opinions about global warming and man’s part in it as there are politicians, climatologists, weather scientists, media people and bloggers on the subject. There is a great paucity of good solid scientific facts. Everyone with a political ax to grind, a grant to go after, readers or watchers to excite, an idea or position to sell, or who have just plain anger at something or someone, is getting in on the global warming bandwagon.
There are a few indisputable facts—or as indisputable as any "facts" can be. Remember, "One man’s fact is another man’s opinion and still another’s fantasy." That is because most facts are trumped by beliefs, a very human trait. These "facts" in consideration include:
1. Increasing the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to hold more heat.
2. Increasing the percentage of moisture in the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to hold more heat.
3. Increasing the percentage of methane in the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to hold more heat.
4. Increasing the percentage of any of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to hold more heat
5. Pouring a bucket of water into the ocean adds to the level of the oceans. How much depends on the size of the bucket and how many buckets are used.
6. Burning any fossil fuel adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
7. All animal life on land or in the seas adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
8. All green plant life on land or in the seas removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
9. Variation in the energy output of the sun affects global temperatures.
10. Variation in the circulation of the oceans affects the distribution of heat in the atmosphere.
11. Variation in galactic cosmic rays affects the amount of cloud cover over mostly tropic ocean water.
12. Variation of cloud cover affects global temperatures as clouds reflect the suns heat energy.
13. There are dozens of demonstrable natural systems that affect global temperatures as much or more than does the greenhouse effect. (The cosmic ray effect on cloud cover is just one)
14. Much of the period between 600 and 1100 CE was warmer than the current century.
15. These are but a few of the countless facts that affect climate and global temperatures.
16. Anecdotal reports of unusual local temperature and moisture conditions are completely useless as an indicator of global warming because of the huge scale of size and time differences between those reports and the global and millennia scales of climate changes.
17. In the 1970s after a series of very cold winters, a significant number of climatologists and other scientists were discussing global cooling and the coming ice age. The media and others reported this extensively to the great concern of the public. Since the winter 0f 2007-08 and its extreme cold and hordes of snowstorms, we're hearing the same kinds of rumbles.
Maybe Chicken Little was right.
All of this is amplified by our fascination with sound bites and short reports and lack of interest in lengthy, serious considerations of those same subjects. Most people simply lack the will or the time to do any in-depth reading or study about this very complex subject. Those who do such reading and study, and even research the subject have widely spread differences of opinion. This is the reason for such a controversy. Into this confusing mix come politicians and "expert" celebrities with huge agendas of their own who capitalize on this by arousing fear and other emotions in the all too gullible public.
With all this dust and smoke obscuring reality, even for those qualified to have a significant opinion, it is no wonder the fire is very hard to find if indeed it even exists. All this "smoke and mirrors" make for much confusion and those who live by emotional appeals make much use of the resulting disarray.
Here are two of the thousands of articles available from the Internet on the subject. They seem a bit more rational than many. Most are emotional diatribes driven by anger at ???
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22218
http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2007/06/weather-channel-backs-global-warming.html
The following has been on my blog, http://hjgulfstream.blogspot.com/ since the date shown. This short section has been added to that blog. ¶ 7:59 AM 0 Comments
