Happy Monday. Did everyone survive the Super Bowl? How about a beer?
That commercial was the most popular one of the night. Seven of the top ten were bud/bud lite commercials. Go figure. Meanwhile, Michelle M. highlights derangement at the NY Times over one of the commercials.
This editorial by Patrick J. Michaels should amaze and astound you
t's hardly news that human beings have had a hand in the planetary warming that began more than 30 years ago. For nearly a century, scientists have known that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide would eventually result in warming that was most pronounced in winter, especially on winter's coldest days, and a cooling of the stratosphere. All of these have been observed.
30 years. 30 years? Will this be the new Global Warming As Caused By Man meme, that it started 30 years ago? That would be right after Newsweek and Time stated, with authority, that the Ice Age was approaching fast. I wonder who was president 30 years ago?
To give Mr. Michaels some props, he actually debunks Kyoto
However, actually "doing something" about warming is a daunting endeavor. The journal Geophysical Research Letters estimated in 1997 that if every nation on Earth lived up to the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol on global warming, it would prevent no more than 0.126°F of warming every 50 years. Global temperature varies by more than that from year to year, so that's not even enough to measure. Climatically, Kyoto would do nothing.
It sure won't do anything when most signatories aren't even close to being in compliance. You know, the USA should join Kyoto to get in the worlds good graces, then blow it off like they do.
I've always wonder why those GWACBM disciples think that it is OK to simply reduce CO2 output. If, like they say, that Mankind putting out CO2 is bad, then why not try and stop it completely, and ban all human devices that put out CO2? Ban cars, trains, and planes. Oops, then they wouldn't be able to jet around the world to global warming conferences, and show up to Hollywood and government affairs in limo's.
The stark reality is that if we really want to alter the warming trajectory of the planet significantly, we have to cut emissions by an extremely large amount, and – a truth that everyone must know – we simply do not have the technology to do so. We would fritter away billions in precious investment capital in a futile attempt to curtail warming.
Exactly. Why not put our efforts into real environmental issues, such as land, sea, and air pollution, deforestation, and conservation. Why? Because they are not money makers like global warming, er, climate change.
Fortunately, we have more time than the alarmists suggest. The warming path of the planet falls at the lowest end of today's U.N. projections. In aggregate, our computer models tell us that once warming is established, it tends to take place at a constant, not an increasing, rate. Reassuringly, the rate has been remarkably constant, at 0.324°F per decade, since warming began around 1975. The notion that we must do "something in 10 years," repeated by a small but vocal band of extremists, enjoys virtually no support in the truly peer reviewed scientific literature.
I am still leery of computer models, whether they push or deny global warming. However (isn't there always a however?), a rise in temperature of .324 degrees F per decade is not very much, and I wonder how much of that can be linked to the urban heatsink effect, reflective heating, and natural forces, such as a higher output from the Sun and volcano's along the Mid Atlantic Ridge.
Can Mankind cause serious global warming? Sure. If we trash the oceans and kill the plankton, you betcha! If we continue to defoliate and deforest, you betcha. But, you know what? Higher temps lead to polar melting, putting cold, fresh water into the circulatory systems, which eventually changes those systems, causing global cooling. So, it all balances out.
Until then, perhaps the global warming disciples could leave the bad scorched earth science fiction novels to the professionals.
Finally, as an afterthought, despite a rather well written and only mildly biased story, I cannot get over Mr. Michaels stating that global warming started in 1975.
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