Getting Overheated Over Global Warming

Not everything here is going to be medical, as I stated in my mission statement. Today we take a detour into another area of science. Though in this case, the more appropriate word is pseudoscience. The area of which I speak is the idea of global warming, or more accurately, the idea of anthropogenic global warming.

I do not intend to debate or deny the issue that our little planet has been getting a little warmer over the past few years. The data collected so far tells us this is true. But let's be truly accurate about this: Earth has been warming up over the past few thousand years (probably the last 14-18 thousand), since the last Ice Age.

What I will take issue with is that our puny little efforts are what's causing all this. When the warming started (14-18 thousand years ago), I doubt there were too many SUVs pouring CO2 into the atmosphere. Yet the glaciers receded. And when scientific estimates reveal that even a Mount Pinatubo size volcanic eruption spews out more "greenhouse gases" in a day than mankind does in a year, and there are volcanoes erupting somewhere on Earth almost every day, then it doesn't take much incredulity to dismiss the anthropogenic part of global warming. In my opinion, it takes a lot more incredulity (or is it gullibility?) to accept it.

Have you noticed, like I have, that every time one of these Global Warming Doomsayers tells us how warm it's going to get, they include a reference to the last time it was that warm on Earth, and that time is always tens, hundreds, or thousands of thousands of years before the first Homo species gave up knuckle walking? To quote John Stossel, "Give me a break!"

Want some more specific criticisms? Want evidence that the anthropogenic global warming critics (who in the typical liberal ad hominem way are derisively referred to as Deniers, thus creating an unjustified reference to Holocaust deniers) are not a bunch of nutjobs but are actually respected, well-credentialed scientists?

Go here to see the first of series of articles in the online Canadian National Post; links to the rest of the series are in the first article. This series introduces us to some of the Deniers, and why they are such. It punches huge, gaping, SUV-sized holes in the idea of anthropogenic global warming (I say idea since I don't feel it even warrants the term hypothesis, much less theory).

As an aside, I have to note that it is of great interest (to me) that I found this wonderful series of articles in a Canadian media outlet. Why hasn't the American news media done this type of investigation instead of swallowing "Global Warming" hook, line and sinker? Oh, yeah, that's right, this is a liberal issue, and the American media is dominated by liberals.

Before I get accused of being a pawn of Big Oil (a classic technique used to ostracize the Deniers), let me issue a disclaimer: I have received no funds, grants, or payments from any manufacturer of fossil fuel energy. I don't even own oil company stock (though I could kick myself repeatedly for not buying some a good many years ago). The closest I ever come to a connection to an oil company is when I have a gasoline nozzle stuck into my SUV.

I am not opposed to reducing our country's dependence on oil. However, I see this as a crucial national security issue, not an environmental one. And let's face it, the dilithium-regulated matter-antimatter generator (or even a workable fusion reactor) is not right around the corner, or even on the horizon. For the foreseeable future, we're going to have to burn oil (and coal, etc.)
By the way, has anyone ever calculated how much CO2 we humans collectively pump into the atmosphere just by breathing? Might make the cars seem insignificant.


ADDENDUM 2-6-07: Orrin Johnson also noted the series of articles in the Canadian National Post and has a very interesting opinion as to why Global Warming is being pushed so hard. Naturally, the reason is political, not scientific. Take a look at it here.