theDoctor said...I think global warming is a baseless opinon promulgated by those who have the money and resources to simply have the loudest voice on the matter....
ohh, but thats right, speaking against, or to take a view which differs to the loudest voice is viewed as conspiracy
you people are so smart
Its called Climate Change now, so they can have an each-way bet on it warming or cooling
But I am not sure climate change in iteself is baseless opinion though.
The earth's cliamte has been changing for the last 5 billion years (since the earth was formed) and it has not been a steady one way trend, it has been variable up, down and ever changing.
If you look at the last 5 million years (human evolution period) we are actually in quite a cool period at the moment. The fact there are polar ice caps actually puts us in an ice-age by geological definitions.
What I can't see is how a climate that is hotter than now will cause mass extintions. For the last 5 billion years the periods when the earth was relatively warmer than it is now were periods of greater rainfall and more biodiversity, why would that change tomorrow ? There is more biodiversity in a rainforest than on the polar ice cap.
To me the only question is the rate of change, is human activity changing the climate at a rate greater than that at which organisms can move or adapt ?
Now, I don't think anything gives us good evidence of the speed of change in the past 5 million years, nothing (ice cores, tree rings, geological deposits) give an acurate snap shot of spikes and blips over say a 30 years period, the same period we now see a spike in global temperatures that causes the debate. They may well give good shows over a long time and individual evidence might show a certain area became flooded over night or something, but nothing shows global change on a year by year basis.
Personnally I suspect that greater changes have occured in the past and life on earth has survived. Remembering all the time extinction is the norm and survival of a species is extremely rare (around 99% of all species ever evolved are extinct).
However, having said all that if the fear of climate change makes us stop pumping concentrated crap into the atmosphere, pumping untreated and concentrated crap into the ocean, producing non renewable consumer products and burying non-biodegraable crap in the ground, then lets promote the concept of climate change as it will do more good than harm.
And why wouldn't the boss of an airline company speak out against those who say the nature of his business is damaging to society ?
