Friday, November 02, 2007

More on Climate Change...

"A member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says he and many other scientists do not see global warming as a developing catastrophe and there is no smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for the warming that does occur.
John Christy is the director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. He and thousands of others on the U.N. panel share half the Nobel Prize also awarded to Al Gore. But he says he cringes when he hears 100-year weather forecasts when it is incredibly difficult to accurately predict the weather five days from now.
He writes in The Wall Street Journal, "Mother Nature simply operates at a level of complexity that is, at this point, beyond the mastery of mere mortals (such as scientists) and the tools available to us."
He points out that a recent CNN report on climate change made much of the shrinking Arctic sea ice cover, but did not mention that winter sea ice around Antarctica set a record maximum last month." The link to this article.

Personally I think there is no question that we ought to stop polluting our planet. I believe strongly in recycling and conservation where possible. I do not believe in the panic over global warming. Become energy independent as a nation is something that I believe is more crucial to our economic well being and security as a nation. Predicting weather patterns is far from an exact science and I don't think we don't know enough about it. I do believe global warming is becoming quite an expensive theory. Good decisions are rarely made in this type of anxiety. Just thirty years ago, scientists were predicting another Ice Age and that really was mostly because were had a few cold winters in a row, which I think we probably will again.

Something that bothers me even more is the kind of reporting mentioned in the article above. News organizations profit by being sensationalist and alarmist as do many others. That is enough to warrant caution.

4 comments:

Janice said...

Oh my gosh, Tiffany. You and I should be best friends. My feelings exactly. FYI: Did you know my brother used to be over air and water for the EPA? He was the one that really opened my eyes to what is really going on and what is reported by journalist.

Anonymous said...

Ditto. I know exactly what you mean about the sensationist reporting and the somewhat less than objective stance taken on the subject by the mass media.
Truthfully, I think if the human race could get past our greed, there would be allot of solutions to the many problems that face us today. Just too many large corporations, big government agencies, special interest groups, high powered lawyers and self appointed experts to make any kind of real progress.

Great post.

Michelle said...

You should really get Wm going on this one, drives him nuts! I think the comment about greed is right on, I think more selflessness would definitelly solve a lot.

Mumsy said...

I couldn't agree with you more.