A Response To The Question "Causes and consequences of climate change"
59I think the largest and by far the most overlooked factor for climate change is the Sun. Since this IS the PRIMARY source of all of our heat, light and energy, it refutes logic to ignore it on any scale. Scientists have stated the the Sun has been on a warming cycle for the past hundred years and now has recently lapsed into a cooling cycle. While just about all of it's energy is transferred through space by radiant energy, anyone familiar with an electric space heater or a simple toaster will understand the concept. Since there are only three ways to affect the amount of heat an object receives from energy transference, let the lesson begin.
One method is to increase the temperature of the heat delivered. I did not say volume or amount of heat, I said temperature. A Match delivers a certain temperature due to the material that is burning. Change the material and you alter the temperature of the heat delivered.
Two - change the amount of material that is burned. A small campfire made with sticks of oak puts out 'X' amount of heat while a bonfire made of logs of oak puts out a lot more heat.
Three - change the distance between the source of heat and the object being heated. Stand ten feet from a fore mentioned bonfire and it's comfortable, stand two feet away and it's unbearable.
Now, the distance from the Sun to the Earth doesn't change, Earth's orbit is Earths orbit and it seems to be just like the little bear's porridge, chair and bed - juuuust right. Since it's continually burning hydrogen and helium - the main fuel source in the Sun, it's logical to conclude that the temperature is unlikely to change due to a change in material consumption.
Therefore, it would not be far fetched to conclude that a change in the temperature of the Sun would be from a change in the amount of fuel being consumed by the Sun. Why does that happen? Beats the crud out of me, why does a rooster crow in the middle of the night when there is no sun? I'm not a scientist and I don't claim to be one. I'm just making an observation and following it to what I believe is a logical conclusion. And that conclusion would logically be - if the Sun warms up, the Earth will follow suit. If the Sun cools down, so will the Earth.
I think it's pretty obvious that I'm a skeptic of the whole global warming thing as it's portrayed by the politicians and so called scientists. I refuse to accept the premise of the theory that it is caused by man. I have many reasons to doubt the theory and I'll give you some of them right here.
Red Flag #1 - It's politicians who are screaming the loudest. Since when has a politician ever gotten anything right? The purpose of any politician, republican, democrat, independent, whig, green, communist, socialist, etc. is to reach deep into my pocket and take money from me that I can't afford to live without. Anytime a politician makes a statement, it gives me room for doubt.
Red Flag #2 - Scientists rely on inconsistent methods of gaining information. One method of determining if the Earth's temperature is increasing is to measure the temperature of the oceans. Since scientists don't get paid to go out and do this on a regular basis, they have it done far more conveniently by having cargo ships do it for them (at least at one time they did). They would have a cargo ship drop a temperature gauge into the ocean at a given coordinate, note the time, depth and temperature at that coordinate. Pretty much like a trucker will go from Ohio to Georgia to Iowa to Ohio, a cargo ship usually has a route that it will run. This allows it to test ocean temperatures at roughly the same coordinates consistently. Now, who's to say the the instrument is properly calibrated? Who's to say that the sailor took the measurement correctly. Who's to say that he even took it at all? Who's to say that he didn't just read the last temperature reading in April, it's now July, the heart of winter South of the Equator, knock off a couple of degrees and put that down? If scientists allow data that hasn't been gathered under a precise criteria, that gives me cause for doubt.
NOTE: I am not saying that all information is wrong. I am saying that scientists allow information into the data pool that is not accurately and responsibly accounted for. This information will skew the results one way or another.
Red Flag #3 - The statement is that the Earth is slowly warming up at an alarming rate. If this statement is true then we can logically conclude that we will see temperatures falling away from record lows and towards more and more record highs. What we are in truth seeing is (during the warmest period we've seen in years) temperatures that beat record lows set in the early and mid 20th century as well as recently. And the same is true for record highs. We are today, beating record highs set in 2005 as well as... wait for it... the 1920's. Houston saw it's earliest snowfall on December 4th of 2009, beating the previous record, December 11th, set the year before. If the Earth is warming, then why are we still (twenty years since the statement was first made that I heard) setting record lows? Since the temperatures aren't following the logical path that the observation makes - The Earth is slowly warming - I have cause for doubt.
Red Flag #4 - I remember when I was a kid in the late seventies. What you heard on the radio and television then was how all these propellants from the aerosol cans like hairspray and spray paint were causing greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases were going to block out the Sun's rays and we were going to experience another global ice age, possibly within the next twenty to thirty years. Scientists had hard evidence that this was true. It was conclusive. It was fact. BUT... five years later they were singing a different tune. Now we were headed the other way at just as alarming a rate. In twenty to thirty years we could see the Earth's temperature rise as much as ten degrees. It's been twenty plus years. The last ten years have been the warmest on record and the average temperature here on Earth has risen a whopping .084 degrees or some such number. Now I don't know if that's Fahrenheit or Celsius. If it's Celsius, it converts to 0.23 something degrees. Whatever. The point is the scientists did an abrupt about face in the eighties and the temperature hasn't risen anywhere near what they claimed it would in the time frame they gave. This causes me to doubt.
Red Flag #5 - Logically, 'global warming' is a global problem. That means that it is affecting the whole, entire, total world. That's my understanding of the word 'global'. BUT... according to these 'global' conferences, it seems to only be occurring in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Brazil... in other words, the countries that are doing rather well economically. These are the countries that are going to be penalized for an overabundance of pollution (or to be politically correct - a larger than allowable carbon footprint). On the other hand, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Venezuela, Peru, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Qatar, Bosnia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and other Third World countries apparently are not experiencing 'global warming' because they will be allowed to conduct business as usual, pouring pollutants into the environment (at about the same rate today as the US did in the '40s and '50s) without being penalized whatsoever. The penalty will be a fine that will be given to the UN and redistributed to those who are not penalized. Since the Third World countries do not seem to be as concerned with the 'global warming' problem as the rest of the world, I have cause for doubt.
Now I'm sure that there are those of you who can refute my arguments. Some will hate me because I'm just too blind, stupid or ignorant. Some will say that I love Bush and hate Obama. This is America, The Home Of the Brave And The Land Of The Free. You have every right to your opinion and you have every right to express it. Patrick Henry declared, "I may disagree with you with every fiber of my being, I may oppose with every ounce of strength I possess what you have to say, But I will fight to the Death for your Right to Say it!"
