e. magill's Intrigue

Let Me Be Crystal Clear on the Subject of Global Warming

So a report is going to come out today from the U.N., supported by over 400 scientists from around the globe, that is going to outline that global warming is definitively a reality and that we are 90% sure that it is caused by mankind. This report is going to be used to justify all kinds of policy decisions regarding how we, as a species, create energy, and how we, as a species, are responsible for destroying the planet. Also, anybody who disagrees with the report is probably being paid off by Exxon-Mobil, in case you didn't know, so all dissenters should be ignored.

Here's the problem: skeptics weren't even invited to the party or given a voice. People like David R. Legates, a Ph.D. climatologist who has earned the title of State Climatologist in Delaware, were specifically kept out of the list of over 400 scientists, only because they are skeptics on the issue of global warming. Thus, the U.N. report is giving the false notion that the scientific community as a whole is completely unanimous about the issue, when clearly, it is not. Even if you assume that the scientific community is mostly certain about it, you still can't dismiss the handful of very intelligent and learned scientists who disagree. After all, it's usually the disregarded crazy scientists with their own views on reality who tend to be right—which we only learn after we force them to drink hemlock, of course.

But let's not put that into the equation. Let's look at the issue from a common sense perspective.

We're talking about weather here. Weather: that wildly unpredictable thing that happens when billions upon billions of variables collide. We can certainly track patterns and use prediction models. We can monitor the effects of various changes, including the emission of greenhouse gases, and we can predict what will happen as a result. But we must always remember that these are predictions, theories, and notions, not facts. When the weatherman says there's a 90% chance of rain, sometimes you find yourself outside with an umbrella you don't need, and that's just a 24 hour prediction. The reliability plummets the further into the future you go, as you can note for yourself by tracking the accuracy of the 7-day forcasts on the Weather Channel.

Therefore, when climatologists tell me that the temperature is going to increase by as much as three degrees in the next one hundred years, I consider myself slightly dubious and fail to understand why others are so keen to have sudden faith in the weatherman.

But they tell us that the sea level is going to rise, something I still need explained to me since my sixth grade science teacher taught me that ice is less dense than water, and I can prove it by watching ice melt in a glass of water. And they tell me that the Earth, as a whole, has gotten about one or two degrees hotter in the last hundred years, even though it was completely impossible to track global weather patterns in 1900. And they tell me that they know more than they did in the seventies, when they were telling us that the world was about to undergo global cooling of a catastrophic nature. When I continue to be skeptical of these experts, others insist that I'm being idiotic.

Why am I the only one who wants to point out that there is no control group here? We can't run any actual experiments or juxtapose our situation against another, because we don't have any basis for comparison whatsoever. There is only one Earth, and we can't remove variables when they represent inconvenient truths.

But I'm willing to stretch the logic a little and assume that the Earth is, indeed, getting hotter (despite the fact that the country as a whole is currently in the middle of the coldest recorded winter in over a decade). Given the billions of variables that account for weather patterns, how can we be so absolutely certain (even 90% certain) that the burning of fossil fuels is the only significant reason? This is a living, breathing planet orbiting a living, breathing sun. Minute changes can affect large ones, and anybody who's studied basic Chaos Theory can attest to the power of a butterfly flapping its wings in Peking. Besides, if you want to get astronomical on me, I'll tell you about how the world's going to undergo some real warming in a few billion years, when we're either going to get absorbed by a red giant or we're going to collide with Andromeda.

But okay, let's even take that out of the equation. Let's assume that the climatologists are right, that the Earth is getting hotter and that it's the fault of mankind. How can we be sure it's a bad thing? What if we are on the brink of another ice age, because of unforseen variables that are about to rear their ugly heads? Wouldn't an increase of three degrees help us out? And hey, aren't we about due for another ice age? What if that supervolcano under Yellowstone explodes? What if another asteroid hits us and blots out the sun for about a hundred years?

But hey, if that doesn't change your mind, let's go even further. Let's say that the Earth is getting hotter, that it's the fault of mankind, and that it's going to be a major problem in the future. Can we be sure that curbing the burning of fossil fuels is going to fix the problem? Believe it or not, most scientists, including some of those congratulating themselves for saving the world over at the U.N. today, believe that an abrupt end to the burning of fossil fuels will actually make things worse for a while. When you ask them what to do about global climate change, you'll find them even more divided than they are on the issue of who's to blame.

So come the blank on, people! What's all the fuss about? Yes, I'm all for finding alternative sources of energy. I don't see a problem with that AT ALL; in fact, I'd like a little less pollution in my life. I don't even care if you call it being safe. But let's not do it because we're afraid of a boogeyman that our local congressman tells us about. And let's not do it because we have the utmost faith in 400 people from around the world. After all, when did 400 get to be such a big number? There are a whole lot more scientologists out there—even scientologists with doctorates—and the last time I checked, their sheer numbers didn't equate to absolute truth.

Just relax, take a deep breath, and spend more time worrying about more immediate issues, like getting your child a good education, good health care, and keeping them from getting raped by the sexual predator next door with an Internet connection or blown up by religious extremists. On the list of things that should scare the crap out of you, global warming is pretty low on the list, right next to getting a tapeworm in your brain or being abducted by aliens.

-e. magill 02/02/2007