What Will Allow Progress Against Global Warming
Yet another scientist who was a skeptic of the human impact on global warming is now calling the alarm. He admits he was skeptical of the projections made a decade ago about the rate of warming. The rate we are experiencing, he now sees, is identical to that projected. Oceans are warming. The end is not yet in sight.
While we could debate forever the solutions to the carbon we are adding daily to the atmosphere, we have to first agree on the most basic of the reasons for this carbon. There are two basic reasons: (1.) Our "standard of living" is too high. (2.) There are too many of us.
The link article claims we can tech our way out of these basic problems. He makes a good case more solar and wind can help. An acre of solar panels will produce more energy than a hundred acres of corn for ethanol. The freon that was filling the atmosphere is disappearing due to laws and good practices. Claiming the problem can be solved through better technology is a strategy that will win elections. Advocating any kind of personal sacrifice to solve it is a sure way to lose elections.
The Bible preaches "good stewardship." One would think good stewardship would be not pumping carbon into the atmosphere which in turn causes hardships and maybe hunger. Will we find a very few Christian denominations or groups preaching this kind of good stewardship? Most of Christianity runs on the backs of church attendance and collection plates. The faith has no more ability to do the right thing than does elective politics. Religion and politics are joined at the hip.
The hope for change lies not with political or religious leaders. They are followers. Many decades ago we lived in Central Missouri. Missouri was a state that traveled slowly on the path to civil rights. During the civil war, parts of the state were on one side, parts on the other. Racial equality was the topic of that decade--talked about everywhere by everyone. A friend of mine observed that really, racial equality will not be achieved until the average, ordinary citizen, black and white, decides it must happen. I like to think most people now see racial equality as something we should always have had.
We will come to grips and solve environmental harm when the time arrives to do something. When it is apparent to the average citizen we must sacrifice and do something about it we will see progress. We're not there yet.
let's have a nuclear war or a pandemic. that would help a lot with your population problem. on a smaller scale you could help out by jumping into one of the new Swiss suicide machines. I hav read that they are now available in the US. and did you happen to read about the Nobel Laueate physicist who recently said that there is no climate crisis.
ReplyDeleteTSM -- "Noble Laureate physicist who recently said there is no climate crisis.."
ReplyDeleteHe has been in the news periodically for a while. It's good to critique information including science. The fellow is not in the field of climate so I don't know if he is a legitimate source of criticism or not. Doesn't seem to me like he is.
Now I remember this guy's shtick. He claims there are other unknown variables causing global warming. This is a standard criticism of every complex cause and effect study. Those doing the actual study know there is always the possibility, no matter how remote, there could be a cause no one can see and no one knows about. So, they do the best they can to cover every known influence. Climate science has been studying variables for many decades and has concluded the only variable that can be causing the rapid warming in the added carbon. This guy says there may be something else causing it but he does not know what it is.
ReplyDeletestandard response from a TRUE BELIEVER. surprise : I thought of that response myself. but then I figured that a Nobel phyiscist shouldn't just be dismissed quite so dogmatically.
ReplyDeletetsm--"Noble prize winner shouldn't be dismissed quite so dogmatically"
DeleteIf this Nobel Prize guy said you should put mayo on your hamburger instead of ketchup you would mindless obey? He seems to fit the definition of gadfly when outside his own field.
still another very, very stupid response. anyway what's wrong with gadflies? Socrates was one such.
ReplyDeletetsm--Well OK, nothing wrong with gadflies. But this guy's complaints are amateurish. Anyone can say "there might be other variables." That's what the cigarette companies said when data linked smoking to cancer. To this day, it is not known precisely why smokers get more cancer. It just happens so often it has become a widely accepted relationship. Your hero physicist probably doesn't accept the smoking/cancer link.
ReplyDeletehe is not my hero. but he is an accomplished scientist who probably woudn't sound off like some foolish politician. (or do you think that Nobels are given to charatans). that aside, don't you know that scientists often discover events and entities that don't fit extant paradigms. or are found to be "variables that we knew not of". about every other day, for example, we read of things that the astronomy community comes up with: altogether new, puzzling and surprising realities, realities that can't be readily explained in terms of extant knowledge. and that often lead to much speculation, often "wild" ignorant speculation. I rest my case. take it or leave it.
ReplyDeletetsm-- "..entities that don't fit extant paradigms"
DeleteOf course there are such new variables, new forces and new explanations that disrupt the knowledge of any particular moment in time. The difference between your dufus hero and these actual unexpected findings is that someone actually comes up with a new variable or explanation. Your hero has not done this. He merely says there MIGHT be something else out there. However, he has nothing. Until he has SOMETHING I will ignore him in this blog. You should frame his picture and hang on the wall with the caption, "My hero who thinks there may be some other explanation for the climate crisis. Maybe someday someone will find it. I'm right to life so I'm praying not too many will die by doing nothing about global warming in the meantime."