A friend of mine recently sent to me an article about the television documentary in Great Britain that challenged conventional wisdom on global warming. He asked me for my take.
I have long written publicly that I am a skeptic about global warming - about how much there actually is, about what the causes of it are, and, if CO2 is a cause, how much of the increase of CO2 is due to human activity. I've read over the course of time too much research that contradicts the mandatory opinion. And too many actual climatologists are unconvinced about it for me to be convinced about it.
My view is that if we 1) take serious extra measures to clean up our air (for ten other good reasons than global warming), and 2) radically reduce our use of hydrocarbon fuels, then we will have done that which is both environmentally and geopolitically sound, and will have reduced greenhouse gases as a result. I am also an advocate of building more nuclear power plants, now that that technology is so much safer and cleaner. Taking this view of course makes me anathema to some fellow environmentalists. So be it.
I think that over the next six months the tide will swing; more and more scientists will feel emboldened to buck the system and say what they really believe about global warming.
Which gets me to the hoopla about John Edward's and Al Gore's respective houses. I think buying carbon offsets is a wussy way to rationalize excessive lifestyles. We don't even know if that approach is effective for reducing CO2. And since we don't really even know that CO2 is the main culprit vis a vis global warming, it's silly at that level too. To make matters worse the energy plants used to provide power for these respective houses are not just spewing out CO2. They are also spewing out all sorts of other nasty pollutants that foul our air and impact the health of forests, animals, and people too. And all that power may well be using up nonrenewable resources such as coal or oil or natural gas.
People like to point to religious folk like me and cry "hypocrite." But there are few folks more hypocritical than globe trotting environmentalist celebrities.
Joel
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
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2 comments:
I am not sure at all about the global warming one way or the other. I am I guess if pressed more on the side of the pros due to the fact that the glaciers are now melted back to where they were 10,000 years ago according to several reports I have read. Yet the Con guys are telling us that global warming occurs naturally every 1500 years. So what’s with the glaciers?
One thing I do know is that the atmosphere in some parts of the country is filthy. I grew up in the northern Ohio Valley when the steel mills were operating full steam in the area. Our home was 15 miles from the nearest plant and in the damp morning air the sulfur burned your lungs.
I also am very much against nuclear energy Joel. Yes the plants are safer, but what is to be done with the spent fuel rods? They are still dangerous for thousands of years. I would much rather we as a nation and a world look to other sources of fuel, some of which even use as fuel things that are in themselves polluting, like pig manure in eastern NC and methane gas from cow manure in Texas. Or some cities in Europe that are using their own garbage to burn to provide electric for the city. Diane Davis is really into this thing on energy if you want to get more information. BB
Brenda,
What we know is that some glaciers are melting. There is no conclusive evidence that the Himalayan glaciers are melting. We are not sure if Antarctic ice is melting. It seems that reports about the Arctic ice melt have been exaggerated. But no doubt, many European, African and North American glaciers are melting. The question is why. I don't mean "because it is gettign warmer" but why exactly is it getting warmer? The danger of putting too many eggs in the global warming basket is that doing so may well end up diminishing the very urgent need to clean up our air for other reasons. About nuclear power, yes, there is still the issue of the spent fuel. But I think the environmental benefits of nuclear energy outweigh the risks of spent fuel contamination. I am satisfied that we have reasonable plans for spent fuel, if we can just get them operative. I realize folks will just disagree about that. Thanks for writing.
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