Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The Warning is an old wive's tale

Well, sure visiting Houston is a drag for those with sensitive systems, since Houston has a population of how many people, and with the traffic to match. Houston is one of the biggest cities in the US. But, Houston aside, yes there is some global warming going on, but the rate is nothing what sensationalist are going on about, how we are destroying the planet and our children and their children will suffer grave consequences. Yes, being environmentally aware is a very important thing. Littering is not great, and it doesnt hurt to buy a bunch of glass water bottles (some high-end bottled watter, like Voss or something) and just re-use them for months and months. But, to try and convince everyone to start using more expensive alternatives, to make drastic changes for something there is no true evidence for?

Lets go back to the 70's shall we? Gerald Ford is president, Saigon falls, Hoffa disappears, and in climate science, evidence points to catastrophic cooling and a new ice age. Such fears had been building for many years. In the first Earth Day in 1970, UC Davis's Kenneth Watt said, "If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age." International Wildlife warned "a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war" as a threat to mankind. Science Digest said "we must prepare for the next ice age." The Christian Science Monitor noted that armadillos had moved out of Nebraska because it was too cold, glaciers had begun to advance, and growing seasons had shortened around the world. Newsweek reported "ominous signs" of a "fundamental change in the world's weather."

But in fact, every one of these statements was wrong. Fears of an ice age had vanished within five years, to be replaced by fears of global warming. These fears were heightened because population was exploding. By 1995, it was 5.7 billion, up 10% in the last five years. But in reality, in the 70, manufacturing and industry was not at all environmentally aware and did nothing to reduce their "impact" on the environment. Yet, still the temperatures dropped. There were tons of cars, gas guzzling muscle cars. Nower days industry takes precautions to lessen their impact and we have hybrids, and yet the temp is somehow rising? Is it so far fetched to say this is all a natural phenomena the plant does on its own?

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