There
are some things about climate that need to be addressed.
In
the United States, there is a children's entertainer pushing a
doomsday outcome for global warming. He has gone so far as to call
for jailing anyone who disagrees. Pretty harsh for a children's
entertainer, I know. Other people have been calling for similar
measures, such as investigating oil companies to "prove"
they knew about global warming and did nothing. What does all of
this mean? First, this is NOT science in any fashion. Scientists
seek knowledge. They test theories, they do experiments, then the
information is presented to the public. The public is then free to
agree or disagree, as can other scientists. If other scientists
question a discovery, that's fine. If someone can prove the theory
wrong, then a new theory is required. Scientists don't jail people
who disagree. The public and politicians who don't understand
science, don't care, or have an agenda to push are the ones who
behave aggressively, trying to silence all differing ideas.
Has
climate changed? Of course--everything changes. Did humans
contribute? Everything on the planet affects climate to some degree
or another. The question is how much. People who believe that
global warming is bad think it's a large amount. They constantly
repeat the "hottest year ever" claim, thinking that a hot
year proves humans did this. It does not. Not in any way. Reporting
a record in temperature says nothing about the cause of that record.
It's just a record, based on whatever data is being used. It's the
largest or highest number in the series.
What
about "extreme weather"? There have been fewer hurricanes
and tornadoes than in the past. Wildfires are affected by many
things--wind, fuel, location, wind, etc. If people leave a lot of
dead underbrush, etc, there's plenty of fuel. Building among trees
increases the chances of the home being burned if there's a fire.
Sometimes, nothing can be done. Fire is a part of a nature and
humans do not control nature, only their reactions to it. Same for
floods--where homes are built, whether rivers are dredged, etc all
have a large influence on flooding. Flash flooding is not as
affected by such things, but there are still actions that can be
taken to reduce the impact of flash floods. Heavy rains can't be
controlled, of course, and have always been a cause of flash floods.
Rain levels vary from year to year but no real increase has been seen
in the levels. That is not to say there are not more floods in some
places, fewer in others. That is how weather works and heavy rain is
weather, not climate. There is evidence that precipitation is not
increasing when averaged over the globe, though it's very difficult
to get sufficient data to know for certain.
All
of these weather phenomena are scary. However, they are a part of
nature and always have been. People in developed countries do have
an advantage--instead of throwing buckets of water on a fire, these
countries have fire trucks, high pressure water lines, telephones,
etc that really help in fighting fires. Fossil fuels made this
possible. Same for having hospitals to treat the injured, and having
helicopters and ambulances to transport people who are injured to
those hospitals. Without fossil fuels, probably none of this would
have happened. For hundreds of years, people died due to long
distances from help, poor sanitation, etc. Reliable, 24/7 energy
changed all of that. Who wants to go back to the "old days"
with shorter lives and struggling to survive?
The
earth we live on is doing fine and so are humans. There's no reason
to drastically change how we live, for the worse especially. Fossil
fuels have made life better and the claim these can cause CAGW really
doesn't hold up when one considers the evidence. Keeping the planet
as clean as possible is a laudable practice. However, there is no
reason to fear modern life.
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