So here I am wondering how I got tagged with the sobriquet of “denier”. Here are things I am sure of.
- Global Warming is real.
- Humans have impacted climate, particularly by gaseous pollutants. Methane will have an impact on climate, CFC’s really do chew up the ozone layer. SO2 has cooled the world.
- The “greenhouse effect” or the increase in atmospheric temperature due to absorption of electromagnetic radiation, is real.
- CO2 is the second largest contributor to the greenhouse effect.
- It doesn’t matter a whit whether water has a much larger impact than CO2.
- It doesn’t matter a whit whether the sun’s energy fluctuates.
- I agree with at least 90% of the IPCC assessment reports.
Here are things that may be true, but I haven’t seen definitive proofs.
- Global Warming will cause catastrophic events.
- Recent temperature trends (in the last 500 years) are increasing beyond ‘normal’.
- Global warming is accelerating.
Here are things that are just as likely as the stuff above.
- Global Warming will reduce the number of catastrophic events..
- Recent temperature trends (in the last 500 years) are ‘normal’.
- Global warming has stopped and we are now cooling.
Here are things I’m skeptical about.
- We know or can estimate a “global average” . . . anything, but most importantly, temperature.
- CO2 is not yet saturated in the atmosphere. This is a well known thing in other fields that examine radiant heat transfer in the atmosphere, yet for some reason, climate is different.
- Trees make good thermometers. A temperature reading by any other name would still be . . . a comparison of a physical property to the current ‘temperature’. Such properties being: relative thermal expansion of metals, thermal expansion of mercury, change in electrical resistance versus heat, tree growth over a season, etc. The first three are state properties. The fourth is not. Should we change our view of them to “hide the decline”?
- The environmental movement is ethical. I have good friends who are environmentalists, including my wife. A further explanation is an entire essay onto itself. Suffice it to say, money corrupts and there is a lot of green in green.
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