Playing Games with the Climate Crisis
February 22, 2010John Gehring over at Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good has a great piece in the On Faith section of the Washington Post that is worth a read. Some leaders, preferring to view the current crises we face as opportunities for political stunts rather than challenges we must meet, have claimed that the recent barrage of record snow storms across the country are proof that climate change does not exist. In so doing, they’ve put themselves on the opposing side of not only the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, the CIA and numerous prominent military leaders, and countless veterans and religious organizations, but also the head of the single largest Christian body in the world, Pope Benedict XVI. The threat posed by climate change has never been that we’re all going to feel a little toastier and will need to invest in more short sleeve shirts. A rise in global temperatures means we will see significant and dramatic changes in the global climate and weather patterns. For instance, warmer than normal waters in the Pacific ocean causes there to be significantly greater moisture in the air, which then has the potential to combine with existing cold fronts, resulting in . . . Snowmageddoon. Climate change is a wrench thrown into a vast machine with many inter-dependent, complex, moving parts. It will cause extreme droughts in some regions, and massive flooding in others, both of which will decimate global food production. As more and more people compete for fewer and fewer resources, we will witness a spike in climate refugees which vastly increases the potential for ethnic violence and creates ungoverned spaces where extremism and terrorism can flourish. Meanwhile, Sen. Inhofe builds an igloo on Capitol Hill to taunt Al Gore. As the Senate considers climate legislation, the country should be asking itself who really has its interests at heart – our military and religious leaders, including the Pope – or partisan politicians out to score a few easy political points?
Sorry, I just don’t buy it. Climate change is a cyclical event repeatedly occurring over millions of years. The science supporting a human cause is not only flawed and dishonest, but far from universally accepted in the scientific or religious communities. The climate change legislation that best supports my values is NO LEGISLATION, in that I believe that a government governs best that governs least. Lower taxes, smaller government, and less intrusion in my life, not more fits the bill nicely, thank you.
Umm, so what is the plan for non-carbon based, base load electricity production that won’t hurt the economy by spiking energy prices?
I am a pro sustainability! It’s a basic concept that I grew up with in farm country.
Most people in the US, probably including people within your own organization, do not understand why the Kyoto Protocol was stopped in its tracks while Al Gore was Vice President. The greatest importence to the scientific community is that a hypothesis turned theory be based on good data. In the late 1990’s three scientists, Arthur B. Robinson, NoahE. Robinson, and Williw Soon at the Oregon In stitute of Science and Medicine, wrote an analysis of the data presented in the global warming theory entitled, “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”. Based on this paper released to the scientific community in the US, a petition was circulated in the climateology community, then to the rest of the scientific community. This petition, signed at the time by over 15,000 US scientists and PhD’s stated:
“We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
To date in the US well over 31,000 scientists have signed the petition as well. When the scientific community in the US is overlooked in the name of politics, we really need to wonder about the state of our world. Science does not work on faulty data.
The fact of the matter, is that global corporations will stand to make trillions of dollars off of the policies that come from this bad data. In the long run, corporations and governments will dictate how things are to run in the world, and the earth will not be held to a sustainable standard.
Please research the faulty data. Also push sustainability not only to the people, but to the global conglomerates who polute to create “green” products.
Climate change is over forget it or keep sending your money to Gore.