The New York Times published a great article today and I absolutely must comment on it. Everything that I say from this point on will assume a familiarity with the article, so please read the whole thing.
"Mr. Gore depicted a future in which temperatures soar, ice sheets melt, seas rise, hurricanes batter the coasts and people die en masse. “Unless we act boldly,” he wrote, “our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes.”
The article essentially makes the point that Gore's alarmism about global warming should be cooled. While most of the scientific community agrees that warming is occurring, they are not as unified as to the nature of its cause(s).
The best testimony comes from a Dr. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology. "He hotly disputed Mr. Gore’s claim that “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this."
Nonsense, Dr. Easterbrook told the crowded session. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”
Granted, this is just one testimony, and the article is not some extreme repudiation of global warming advocates or the scientists who support them; but nor should it be. I'm fairly sure that the climate is changing. And, I'm not closed to the possibility that humans are a significant factor, though if we are to take Dr. Easterbrook at his word--we are not such a factor.What I am closed to is environmentalist fanatics who want to crush all debate and behave like religious zealots. Look at how these people act. They shun anyone who questions the severity of their claims and seek to brand such people as heretics. I'm not ready to say, nor should anyone, that global warming is not man-made. I will always defend the profound need for constant debate, questioning, and discussion on a matter of profound importance.
It is for this reason that I commend the New York Times for this article, and encourage all of you to take it to heart. Do not let an irrational fear, created by a man like Al Gore, cloud your judgment. It is true that we should be concerned about the potential consequences of climate change, but we cannot allow that to suspend our reason, and silence debate.
Look for a post about the movie 300 to come soon.
2 comments:
Good to see you back!
I don't know enough background information about the "10 large swings" that Dr. Easterbrook is quoted to have mentioned during the geological society meeting in PA so I cannot entirely argue that the current climate change within our atmosphere is not an eleventh swing, however, from recent work in my Chemistry and the Environment course in which I read articles and researched legislation, it is clear that since the Industrial Revolution, an incredible amount of harmful substances and gases were, and continue to be, thrust into the earth's atmosphere, causing chemicals composed of specific atoms to react with UV-B radiation to destroy ozone and to also cool temperatures in the strasophere, which in turn increases temperatures in the troposphere (closest to the earth's crust), causing a global temperature increase.
Because it is known as fact in the science community that these reactions are taking place within our atmosphere it seems strange to me that some wish to dismiss the current climate change as a natural process and humans can therefore continue the emission of harmful chemicals without a second thought. (I'm not saying this is you, Steve Giar-- BIG BROTHER COULD BE READING!!!!!!!!!!!!!.... I'm not pointing my finger at you, I'm just generally speaking for discussion purposes)
Anyway, I just wanted to mention that as another facet of the discussion.
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