22-11-2009, 02:18 PM
I believed it. The theory seemed reasonable before, say, in the 1980s, then we started seeing real changes in climate and there was this theory to explain it. The media did a good job at presenting it as "the whole world scientific community believes this is happening but the US is dragging its feet because of oil money."
I didn't bother to look at the science. Even when Michael Crichton in his famous interview on BBC said "show me the evidence," it didn't click for me. Not that I'm even a small fan of his writing, but his words were right, science has to base itself on empirical evidence.
When I finally got around to looking into it, all I found was computer modeling of climate. This is akin to, but less accurate than, using tarot cards to predict climate change. It is inherently subjective, especially since the people involved are not disinterested and climate is so little understood. Heck, fluid dynamics is little understood even now.
What I did find was a plausible explanation for climate change in the late 80s till now based on solar radiation flux. I also found that the temperature variations we had experienced were very mild compared to the geological record. I did not find any sea-level rising (although I might not be looking in the right places) or really extraordinary changes in glaciers or icecaps, no real attrition of the Greenland or Antarctic icecaps.
And then I had to look at the politics and furore surrounding it all. Using AGW as a control mechanism, as an economic austerity program, as a wealth-transfer vehicle. Is there something more to it? I don't know. I had a nightmare once about the world going dark, and global warming seems much preferable to global cooling, as a general rule.
AGW also provides a pretext for geopathology experiments under guise of terraforming to engineer an antidote to AGW. I mean chemtrails. How spreading barium isotope salts and aluminium in the upper air serves the interests of life, I can't for the life of me see.
Then there's the issue of hypocrisy. Gore, the oilman, having lakes artificially filled during droughts so he can have a photo-op in a canoe etc. HAARP superheating the ionosphere. the US military's "carbon footprint." Reducing carbon emissions isn't harmless if it means ruining the economic prospects of underdeveloped countries and accelarting the deindustrialization of the United States.
Those are my thoughts on it these days, recognizing that I was duped by smoke and mirrors masquerading as science, and that I am just as dupable now.
I didn't bother to look at the science. Even when Michael Crichton in his famous interview on BBC said "show me the evidence," it didn't click for me. Not that I'm even a small fan of his writing, but his words were right, science has to base itself on empirical evidence.
When I finally got around to looking into it, all I found was computer modeling of climate. This is akin to, but less accurate than, using tarot cards to predict climate change. It is inherently subjective, especially since the people involved are not disinterested and climate is so little understood. Heck, fluid dynamics is little understood even now.
What I did find was a plausible explanation for climate change in the late 80s till now based on solar radiation flux. I also found that the temperature variations we had experienced were very mild compared to the geological record. I did not find any sea-level rising (although I might not be looking in the right places) or really extraordinary changes in glaciers or icecaps, no real attrition of the Greenland or Antarctic icecaps.
And then I had to look at the politics and furore surrounding it all. Using AGW as a control mechanism, as an economic austerity program, as a wealth-transfer vehicle. Is there something more to it? I don't know. I had a nightmare once about the world going dark, and global warming seems much preferable to global cooling, as a general rule.
AGW also provides a pretext for geopathology experiments under guise of terraforming to engineer an antidote to AGW. I mean chemtrails. How spreading barium isotope salts and aluminium in the upper air serves the interests of life, I can't for the life of me see.
Then there's the issue of hypocrisy. Gore, the oilman, having lakes artificially filled during droughts so he can have a photo-op in a canoe etc. HAARP superheating the ionosphere. the US military's "carbon footprint." Reducing carbon emissions isn't harmless if it means ruining the economic prospects of underdeveloped countries and accelarting the deindustrialization of the United States.
Those are my thoughts on it these days, recognizing that I was duped by smoke and mirrors masquerading as science, and that I am just as dupable now.