I live in the Pacific Northwest, right on the waters of Puget Sound. Of the many benefits that living near a large body of water brings, temperature stability is one of them. It takes a lot of energy to change the temperature of water, and consequently, it doesn’t get super hot or super cold around here much.
I bring this up because we’re currently experiencing both record amounts of snowfall and record low temperatures. By ‘record’, I mean over the past 4-5 decades. Quite impressive.
Aside from the fact that I love the cold and snow (to a point), I’m also a bit gleeful because all this blistering cold flies (like snow flurries) in the face of the global warming movement. How is it that we’re breaking cold records if it really is true that we’re trapping hot gasses in our atmosphere with our carbon emissions?
There’s two answers, both are stupid. One is, “Did I say global WARMING? Huh. That’s funny. I meant global temperature fluctuations! And they’re just as bad – no, worse – than the global warming stuff I was preaching 10 years ago.”
The other answer is that this winter – a winter where every living organism north of the latitude of Phoenix, AZ is currently trying to unfreeze the snot from the inside of their noses – is just an anomaly. A blip. We’re getting warmer, you just don’t notice it. You won’t notice it until your’re melting into the pavement of your local Dodge Durango dealership.
I will disclaim here that medical doctors are poor scientists, usually. Our profession is filled with superstition and trendy medicine and popularity contests. But, we’re trained as scientists, so I will say that we know the rules of empiric discovery. As such, even as a para-scientist, I say that global warming is not science. Why? Because there is no real evidence to support it. Furthermore, the phenomenon isn’t repeatable. Both empiric evidence and repeatability are hallmarks of good science. If you don’t have these things, you have no way of knowing truth from trend.
What global warming alarmists conveniently omit every time they prognosticate the end of human life is that, a) there is no way to determine a unique trend in temperatures on a planet that is thousands of years old (at least) when you only have about 150 years of data. And b) there is strong financial incentive (in the form of grants) for global warming to actually exist.
I’m a believer in conservation. I’m a stickered member of the Sierra Club. I believe in waste reduction and recycling, I’m into alternative fuels and I’m warming (no pun intended) to composting.
But using the social myth of global warming is stupid, dangerous, expensive and disingenuous.
A few years ago, you may have heard about the controversy in Oregon regarding the Spotted Owl. Tree-cutting was successfully halted because environmentalists claimed that the Owl – a protected species – had a mating radius of 50 miles. In truth, they were just trying to protect old-growth forests.
I think we’re doing the same thing with global warming. The problem is that using bad scientific principles to manipulate the public eventually creates an uncritical and intellectually lazy public. A badly-thinking public is not to anyone’s benefit because over time, somebody will dupe everyone into much worse (see: Peoples Temple, Angkar, Einsatzgruppen)
We need to limit our consumption of fossil fuels. We need to reduce, reuse and recycle. We need to protect our forests and rivers. But it isn’t because of such a farce as global warming. So far, there simply is no evidence to support such a brilliant, scary tale.
secretwave101 
I’m a hopeless optimist.
It just does not occur to me, going ’round in circles as I “act locally” and try to think at least regionally, that ulterior motives — “financial incentives”– drive scientific investigations! D’oh.
I am convinced by the arguments for global warming and usually roll my eyes at the simplistic nature of people who would deny its likelihood. But hell, it’s snowing on your beach and you look out on Puget Sound.
Still… as a physician, how much scientific credence…
(Wait a minute! Let’s say that the expression of “scientific credence” in the medical world shall be a decision to act: prescribe drugs or physical therapy, operate, toss in a hyperbaric chamber, “watch and wait.”)
So. How much scientific credence do you grant anecdotal evidence? I hear so much about evidence-based medicine, yet such a thing doesn’t exist in a vacuum, void of informed consents or continuing debate. “Doctor, when I was two, my uncle says I was bit by a snickerboodle and swelled up so bad I couldn’t breathe and they had to cut a hole in my neck. Do you think I should get me one of them snickerboodle venom kits when I go camping? We’ll be miles from nowhere and that area is rife with snickerboodles!”
Being scientific doesn’t necessitate floundering around in cartesian doubt — which I’ve always found a subtle “too cool for school” kind of thing, an anti-academia-emia! It’s way too easy to fight skepticism by doubting everything.
That kind of mess needs to be kept separate from method
— because method, which is necessarily stringent and logical, has to have one or more givens.
It always seems to happen that the people with whom I might most enjoy an argument are hanging their hat on the same givens as are on the tip of my tongue — but to a different end! Meaning that their very good will forces me to step back and gawk at the problem from a different vantage point.
I am talking about how I was bursting to say, in defense of the lack of convincing [to you] empiric argument — “there is no way to determine a unique trend in temperatures on a planet that is thousands of years old (at least) when you only have about 150 years of data” but you beat me to it. You are as myopic a nay-sayer as I am a proponent of the phenomenon’s existence.
So don’t couch your disagreement with this theory as having a scientifically-informed basis! We don’t — okay, *maybe* we do not — have the luxury of pretending this is pure science. This is as much a local 11-Alive News at Ten weather forecast as it is a bellweather event of proportions we cannot imagine (having no witness, no x-ray, no electronic medical record, no vital signs chart of sufficient accuracy or length to give meaning to the raw data) unless we’re going to marry conviction and belief to a well-informed guess.
Hmm. I need a nap. I hope someone capable of sustaining the argument drops by — I will follow quietly along. Merry Days!
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Whoa, is it 1995? The right-wing global warming disinformation campaign was discredited a long time ago. Global climate change is not controversial science.
At least you disclaimed any actual scientific credibility while ejaculating this nonsense. (Even without the disclaimer, admitting the possibility that the Earth might be a few thousand years old puts you on pretty shaky ground with any real scientist.) You proceed from several fallacious assumptions:
1) It’s cold outside, man!
Global warming is a macro phenomenon, not a micro phenomenon. One cold winter doesn’t buck an overall trend. What you’re arguing is tantamount to claiming that because gas has dropped back to $1.50/gallon, that it isn’t going to continue to trend up as developing countries such as China massively increase the aggregate demand for gas. Or that, because the market is in bad shape now, that stocks are a bad long-term investment.
2) We only have measured temperatures for 150 years.
Measurements such as global temperatures and carbon composition of the atmosphere has been indirectly measured via a plethora of techniques going back for thousands to millions of years.
And then, there’s the hyperbole. The “end of human life”? Who’s saying that? You seem to be seeking to discredit real scientists by putting words in their mouths.
Next up: Evolution is pseudo-science! Since humans haven’t seen one species morph into another before their eyes, there’s no way good science could claim it has happened!
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Ugh! This is the worst I’ve ever read!!! So much wrong!!!
A) “How is it that we’re breaking cold records if … we’re trapping hot gasses in our atmosphere”
OK… accumulating heat-trapping gasses
B) The December cold spell in the PNW was weather, in your little part of the world, not global climate. And how can any rational person expect an average increase in global mean temperature on the order of .15 C per decade to mean “there won’t be any more cold weather”? Doesn’t make sense.
C) “a planet that is thousands of years old (at least)”
Where did you come up with that!? 4.5 billion years old if you know anything about science.
D) “we’re trained as scientists”
You mean trained in science? Most MDs never use the scientific method (you know, something like, hypothesis, experiment, result, refine hypothesis, experiment, on and on) or have been trained in it, or sometimes even exposed to it. That’s why there are so many poorly designed and executed medical experiments.
E) “global warming is not science. Why? Because there is no real evidence to support it.”
Not if you choose to ignore it, or disbelieve it out of hand.
Never mind, I just realized this is pointless! It would be impossible for anyone to penetrate your defenses with logic or science.
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Since when did the age of the earth become immutable fact? Where’s the empiric proof of this ‘billions’ idea? I agree that the earth is old, but I also wholeheartedly admit that this is a BELIEF. It is not scientific fact.
Agree that doctors are poor scientists. I state in my blog that we’re really para-scientists. But at least I understand Baconian empiricism. I’m not moving away from that reality – assisted by a Humian materialistic world-view – no matter how many computer models “eminient” scientists throw at me.
Science and logic are exactly what I’m talking about. We aren’t using them in our debate about Global Warming. We’re using religion – belief based on suppositions and assumptions. Global Warming is a religion. Not science.
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Well, holy smokes… I’ll give this one a thumbs up! And the comments a thumbs down.
There is absolutely ZERO science capable of claiming that the debate is over!… Not while minds like Dyson, Patterson, and others are out there saying that people are over-simplifying the equation.
Don’t you ever find it amazing that a single bison can produce as much greenhouse gas as driving a reasonable car 8000 miles? Let’s see, there were 60 million bison in the U.S. alone… that means, Bison ALONE were responsible for… 480 billion miles of auto traffic emissions… oh wait! How many times more potent than CO2 is Methane? Multiply again! YOU do the math, since you’re so smart. Oh, and by the way, the bison were here for 20000 years! Multiply…. again. We’ve only been doing this for the last 100. Let’s not forget volcanoes, forest fires, and other massive natural processes that completely negate anthropogenic causes.
OR, have you ever asked which came first, chicken or the egg? Does heat cause CO2 outgassing? Or does CO2 cause heat? See the link below for some other interesting reading.
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html
If you want to see something interesting about the ulterior motives in science and grant money, get your hands on a recent secular documentary called “Expelled.” It’s somewhat about the “science” of *gasp* evolution (as the origin of life), but mostly about the exclusion of scientists interested in putting forward other hypotheses, or even asking questions. So much for free thought… Hmmm, sounds like a great thinker the Greeks did away with?
But to you commenters, please keep an open mind… unless, as it would seem, you are already an “Expert”.
And to the author… Let’s just be thankful these sheep are trying to lead us towards a greener existence, rather than to the Cambodian killing fields.
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You will probably see what you believe. If your convinced Man is the enemy. You will probably believe he’s destroying the planet. If you believe man is good. You will not be easily convinced that his good Ideas destroy his world. You see your only looking at your own thoughts. It all disappears when you put the microscope to it.
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