As for the scientific validity of the case for global warming, there are so many convincing arguments against it, but I'll start with one that I hope you, as a scientific thinker, can appreciate. If you are given a data set (regardless of what the data are) with x and y values and you plot them on a Cartesian plane, you can draw the inference that there is a correlation between these values. This can lead you to one of three possible explanations for this correlation.
1. x causes y, so y is dependent of x
2. y causes x, so x is dependent of y
3. y and x are independent of each other, and have a coincidental correlation.
Global warming theorists simply looked at such a chart plotting temperatures against man-made CO2 emissions and immediately assumed that CO2 caused the temperature to increase. They haven't even bothered investigating the alternative explanations for this correlation, which is what good scientists would seek to do. As yet, there has not been any causal relationship shown between the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and global temperatures. Until such proof is presented and validated by the scientific community, I will remain skeptical of these claims.
Last week, the researchers at the East Anglia University climatology department were shown to have been manipulating their data set on temperatures and CO2 levels. This data was, until now, the primary source for global warming theorists. Additionally, they even admitted that there has actually been a decline in global temperatures since 2002, while CO2 emissions have risen steadily, bucking the purported trend between the variables.
Meanwhile, the main proponents of global warming theory, most notably Vice President Al Gore, stand to reap immense financial rewards based on the validity of this theory. For example, Gore personally owns a firm that sells "carbon credits" that people can purchase to offset their personal carbon creation. If global warming was shown to be false, his investment would collapse. So he has a strong incentive to keep the hoax alive, even if he needs to resort to outright lies to make it so.
Politicians the world over have found a convenient bogeyman in the form of global warming. Unless they are granted sweeping powers over people's lives and decision-making, they claim that the world will essentially end in apocalypse from this threat. And it is immensely convenient, since the "enemy" is not a human figure but instead a phenomenon of nature. Additionally, they claim that this end-of-world scenario will unfold in 50 to 100 years, just long enough for them to never have to live long enough to see if it becomes true or false. There is simply far too much incentive for the parties invested in this theory to give up on making it stick in the mind of the voting public. Hence, even when substantial scientific evidence is presented that overwhelmingly refutes this theory, they childishly begin name-calling their opponents rather than take on the issue at hand. The finest rule of politics is: if you're debating an issue and you start losing, just change the subject and call the other guy names. Works like a charm.
Ok, even if global warming doesn't exist or if it's a natural phenomena of the earth (someone once described the rising and lowering temperatures to me as the earth 'breathing in and out') does that excuse us from all responsibility to take care of our environment? Just because some people like our former vice president stand to gain from humans living more 'green,' does it make it an invalid initiative? And if yes, why? Pharmaceutical companies supply us with life-saving medicine but they're still gaining a lot too.
ReplyDeleteMelting polar caps aside, air pollution has been shown to cause a lot of health problems (see http://www.lbl.gov/Education/ELSI/Frames/pollution-health-effects-f.html for example). Even if there are people who want to cash-in on this "convenient bogeyman" that doesn't negate the fact that humans need to live wiser and take responsibility for the care of our earth and ourselves. And that means reducing our 'carbon footprint.'
Sarabee~
ReplyDeleteDon't make the mistake of conflating two separate issues into one. There is a massive difference between Carbon Dioxide emissions (which is a by-product of the natural biological processes that all animal cells use to survive) and real air pollution. Things like sulfuric dioxide and nitrogen oxides really do pollute the atmosphere. They cause acid rain and asthma and really harm both humans and the ecological system that we all live in. Those types of emissions should probably be regulated and limited and most of them have been regulated stringently through the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts of 1990. That form of air pollution has been limited and it had nothing to do with anyone's "carbon footprint".
Carbon dioxide, however, is not in any form a pollutant. There has been NO RELIABLE SCIENTIFIC DATA to support the claim that CO2 is anything other than the biological by-product of all animal cells. It has been in our atmosphere since there were animals on the Earth. Millions of years ago, when herds of dinosaurs roamed the world, they all produced CO2 as a function of breathing. It didn't suddenly appear the moment the Republican Party was founded, or on the same date that Algore decided to run for President.
The largest source of CO2 on the planet today (and for the last 50 years) has been cow belching. Now, Algore would have you believe that evil corporations and evil car companies and (Most of all) evil Republicans are the ones profiteering by destroying the Earth with carbon dioxide. But it's simply not true. Reducing your "carbon footprint" is a totally irrelevant act that has no effect on the ecosystem of the world. It won't cause the world's temperature to drop, seeing as the world has been slowly cooling since 2002.
Even if you ignore the fact that Algore stands to make a fortune off of the global warming fallacy, you can't ignore the facts that point to CO2 being a totally harmless, completely innocuous gas that is not in any way a pollutant. If you would rather suggest that some other industrial by-products are polluting the world, and we should work to limit them, I'd be open to that argument.
Don't fall into this logic trap. You're suggesting this:
Real air pollution comes from industry,
CO2 comes from industry,
Then CO2 must be a pollutant.
That's the same as saying:
Hillary is an evil woman,
Sarah is a woman,
Therefore, Sarah must be evil.
It doesn't make sense, but it's what you've argued above. I'm not trying to be patronizing here, but I'd like to make sure you recognize the difference between real threats to our environment and made-up bunk that political opportunists will use to gain money and power.
Thanks for your reply.
Aleksey, you always inform me of what I'm secretly suggesting and it always surprises me because I didn't intend to make such suggestion! I'm referring to the logic trap I apparently used :)
ReplyDeleteOk, so obviously I need to do some homework on global warming, the effects of carbon dioxide, etc. But I thought of something today. Not sure if it qualifies really as a rebuttal but...
Is it valid to say that this push for reducing carbon dioxide emissions has also directly and indirectly increased awareness in the public of energy consumption, has help to promote energy conservation and has been a motivating factor for the search and production of alternative energy sources? That's got to count for something I think.
Sure, reduction of energy consumption might be useful on its own merit, but this global warming hoax has never been about that. The question we have to ask is whether the price of energy conservation (again, on its own merit) is worth what we have to pay for it, meaning what we have to not produce or give up. It's a tool called a cost-benefit analysis and that sort of reasoning should be applied here. When we can calmly sit down and discuss these ideas in real terms based on what the facts are, then we can come to logical, feasible solutions.
ReplyDeleteBut when all we have is blinding emotion and opportunistic politicians looking to curry favor with a jaded public, then we get silly ideas and truly destructive "solutions" to problems that don't exist. This is not to suggest that your reasoning is not rational; quite the contrary, I appreciate your level-headed approach to this discussion. But the majority of others in this environmentalist movement don't even want to listen to the rational opposing arguments presented. They want to hold fast to their idealism and emotion in spite of it.