[geeks] Global warming, was Mr Bill?

[Phil Stracchino]

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 06:53:57AM -0500, Mike Hebel wrote:
>> I'm personally on the global warming side only because of how much
>> pollution we produce as a species but frankly until we get a handle on the
>> entire ball of data our best bet is to clean up as much as we can to
>> minimize _ANY_ effect our technology might have on the environment.
> 
> Personally, I feel that global warming is a red herring based upon
> politcal ambitions and greed. For example, depending upon how you look
> at it, Gore's movie is just one big informerical for his carbon credit
> company.

Honestly, Al Gore is one of those people you want to tell "Look, do me a
favor and stay off my side, OK?"  Granted he's done a lot to publicize
global warming, but with the side effect that MANY people dismiss
anything to do with global warming as just more Al Gore bloviating.
He's exaggerated so much he discredits what he's trying to support.

That said, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that anthropogenic
global warming exists and is a very real problem.  There are dissenting
views, but they are in a minority.  There is apparent contrary data, but
it is a minority - and much of what appears to be contrary data is in
fact simply a case of not understanding how that datum fits into the big
picture.  For example, people who say "It's getting colder and rainier
here!  Global warming is nonsense!"  Global warming doesn't mean that
every spot on the planet gets warmer and drier.  It means the average
planetary temperature rises.  There's people who've pointed at areas
where surface air temperature is dropping and saying this means we're
due for an ice age, not global warming.  But they've failed to
understand that surface air is cooling there because atmospheric mixing
has increased, more warm air is rising into the stratosphere and beyond
while cold air from the stratosphere is falling down into the
troposphere, and the average temperature of the air column has gone up.

Or another example - look at this map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Global_Warming_Map.jpg

Yes, parts of Antarctica cooled by as much as 1.5 degrees from 1995 to
2004, relative to their average from 1940 to 1980.  Patches in the north
Pacific northeast and outhwest of Hawaii also cooled slightly, as did a
patch of the Atlantic off the US east coast.  But look at the huge
swathes of temperature rise in the Bering Sea, East and North Africa,
and central Asia.  And just a little west of that darkest cold spot in
Antarctica is one of the darkest hot-spots on the entire world map.

This is an example of what I meant about people only looking at part of
the data.  When you look at isolated data, it's easy to find data that
appear to contradict global warming.  But when you look at them in
context and understand the big picture of what's happening on a global
scale, it's clear that global average temperatures are rising.
Individual scientists and "poseur scientists" here and there - some of
them very vocal - still disagree, but the national academies of science
of all the major industrialized nations are in consensus.


> Pollution is another issue and I agree we need to do something about it.
> 
> IMHO the only candidate for POTUS that has a sane energy policy is
> Paris Hilton. I know, she's too young to run, but there's always 2016.

Surely you're kidding.  If she had three working brain cells, two of
them would be figuring out where to get laid next, and the third would
be pondering where to get her next baggie of blow.  Her father didn't
disinherit her *just* because of her poor taste in boyfriends and lack
of discretion.  They're symptoms of the fact that the girl may be "hot"
(if you like that vapid kind of style), but she's none too bright.



-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.