Sunday, February 11, 2007

Global Warming

There was an interesting letter in the News Journal today on the topic.

Climatologist is right to be skeptical of alarmist data

A Feb. 1 article referred to a global warming skeptic, Delaware climatologist David Legates. Legates' skepticism is substantiated by the scholarly literature. There is no solid statistical correlation between the minor increase in temperature and fuel emissions.

I came to the University of Delaware Geography Department to pursue a Ph.D. in climatology, after completing my master's degree in environmental science at Johns Hopkins. Throughout my years at both institutions climatologists and climate researchers have always been skeptical about alarmist data regarding global climate change. Why quote the worst-case scenarios when much more accurate models are more probable?

Climate can change by a few degrees and not indicate catastrophic change -- and it has many times in the past. Carbon dioxide has been in larger atmospheric concentrations than the present with cooler estimated temperatures.

The public must remember that human-induced climate change is still scientifically unproved. The data is inconclusive and must be scrutinized. I'm proud to attend a university with faculty brave enough to challenge the alarmist data and get to the truth. John Van Stan, Newark
I'm glad to see that there are some people around who are skeptical when it comes to science and some aspects of the scientism of our day. Not to say that they are cynical or reactionary, just skeptical in the traditional way that they are supposed to be. It seems to me that there are a number of reasons to be skeptical on this topic.

For instance there is the apocalyptic tone typical to those who believe in global warming, something that naturally draws forth skepticism given humanity's long history of false prophets. Prophesying the Great Doom and expecting people to change the way they live based on faith is something typical to religion. Not that I have anything against religion or even the notion of catastrophe and the Great Doom, especially given that the earth as we know it will certainly come to an end. (That is to say, it will be uninhabitable and therefore ended as far as life and the capacity for knowledge/sentience goes.)

Greens don't seem to understand that Nature and the earth have clearly been fit for Life, yet the music of the spheres by which we live is constantly going out of tune and ultimately every living thing in the universe is most likely destined to die. Generally Greens are not the sort of people who will admit to the sort of God that would fit and form Nature for life while also eventually letting every single bit of life die, so they shift to an odd sort of faith of the supposed good of Nature and the Earth rather than admitting to the nature of God and so having to deal with the archaic issue of good and evil. Greens are also generally a curious mixture of Left and Right (more leftist blurring than righteous definition), so they are usually among the first to claim that a mixture of elements are somehow evil incarnate. Sometimes even naturally occuring chemicals like carbon dioxide seem to become a blinding "pollution" in their Leftist minds.

You have to wonder at the distinctions they are assuming. There's never much of a clear distinction of principles with the Leftist mind. For instance, on the one hand the earth is overpopulated and yet on the other "pollution" is usually defined as that which harms human life or habitability. I.e. if it causes people to die then it is pollution...yet if less people exist then that is a good thing. For after all, then there will be less pollution and Mommy Earth will be saved!

It seems to me that a Christian view of things is more balanced and consistent. We can't "save the planet" anymore than we can move the sun, yet the moral imperative we feel to garden the Garden in our own small way while making a life for ourselves in harmony with it is a God-given part of us.

Related posts: It's global warming, so get out your ear muffs.
Global warming, global cooling and global excrement

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