Saturday, March 29, 2008

The climate change debate continues on...

Nina/Norman and I have been going back and forth about this over at the Crallspace in the comment section of this post.

She/He has been reading up on skeptics who don't think humans are responsible for climate change.

Here is my latest response.

Well, I think we're in agreement that we as a civilization cannot continue to accelerate the combustion of fossil fuels, which has gotten us to where we currently are.

But just on an intuitive level, it makes zero sense to me that a population can release millions of years worth of carbon stored in the ground for millions of years in a mere century and not tip the balance oh so slightly. Science never proves anything absolutely. However, there is strong evidence, theoretical probability and likelihood and as you've noted I believe, intuition as well.

I can appreciate your reluctance to hysteria as you might percieve it, but the fact is, and I know you agree, things have got to change. This moment is critical to future generations. Global capitalism has to change and that starts with consumers, us, cause God knows it ain't coming from the top.

Consider the money situation, isn't it perfectly logical that "conservative" big oil and coal money is funding many of these naysayers and vectors of misinformation? They're killing people for oil for christsake. Murdering people to control the drug that makes us feel secure, but in reality makes us less secure.

I'll check out your link now and will post this on my blog.
[added later]
I read the aussie article. then I googled one of the mentioned scientists, Joel M. Kauffman (Emeritus). I don't really know the guy, I've never read any of his publications, but all the ones on his website have to do with drugs and chemistry, cause he's an organic chemist. Why is he being so vocal about climate change?

Also, I should ask readers to check out the IPCC report. In it you can see that relative to the last 10000 years or so, atmospheric concentrations of CO2, CH4 and N2O have increased exponentially in the last hundred years or so. Exponential increases in natural systems are the antithesis of stability/equilibrium.

1 comment:

Nina said...

The hysteria comes in when people challenge the human-cause factor. It's become the newest fanatical religion where debate is no longer allowed without this sense of hysteria and attempts to silence. I've read enough to put serious doubt in my mind.

My concern is government and big biz using this as a means to further control and tax our personal lives. I still hold that the Sun has a lot more influence on our climate than we realize. But that being said, as you know, I believe the air's a mess and needs cleaning up. We need to break free from oil. We need new ways of transporting ourselves. Greatly reduce plastic use. New means of energy to power our vehicles (hemp, anyone??).

Tesla's idea for free energy needs to become mainstream and those (scientists etc.) who are familiar with his ideas need to get some damn backbone and resist government/big oil intrusion.