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1/12/10
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4 comments
Global warming exists despite cold snap
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It’s cold outside, so that means only one thing — global climate change is obviously fake.
While I don’t think that climate change believers in the government, business and scientific sectors have been completely forthright in stating the realities of global climate change, it is utterly ridiculous to believe that global climate change does not exist simply because it’s cold outside.
It’s January in Northern Michigan; of course it’s cold outside!
Global climate change goes well beyond being able to wear shorts outside on Christmas day. It is an encompassing theory that attempts to prove that worldwide weather patterns are changing in a way that is unlike that ever seen in recorded history.
Many of the gloom-and-doomers who support government sanctions in an effort to curb global carbon emissions in order to reverse climate change often only cite examples of increased storm activity, increases in ocean temperatures, and soon-to-be palm trees outside of the Alaska governor’s mansion.
While those could be potential consequences of global climate change, activists defeat themselves by trying to shock the American public with facts and figures that many are not gullible or compassionate enough to swallow.
For instance, a study from the World Health Organization states that nearly 160,000 people die annually as a result of global climate change from things such as droughts, heat waves, decreased food production and increased disease outbreaks.
The study noted that the number of fatalities could likely double by 2020, with a majority of the deaths experienced in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Frankly, Americans do not really care about fatalities outside of the United States.
If Americans cared about deaths in these areas we would step in to end the genocide in Darfur, and we would have tried to stop needless civilian death in places like Rwanda, Serbia, and Armenia before it was too late.
Recently, commercials have hit the airwaves that have tried to rally an outcry of support to stop climate change because of the eventual extinction of animals such as polar bears, and less notably, narwhals.
How many people have ever seen a polar bear, or for that matter, ever heard of a narwhal?
Not many.
That’s about the same amount of people that will be persuaded by those commercials.
If those who are trying to raise awareness of climate change want to try to successfully evoke change within this country they need to tell Americans how climate change will affect the thing they hold most dear — their wallets.
An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007 put the net economic cost of climate change at an average of $12 per metric ton of carbon dioxide released.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Web site has a household emissions calculator that guests can use to figure out how many pounds of carbon dioxide they release into the atmosphere every year.
According to the calculator, my household releases 10,123 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. That is the equivalent to roughly 4.59 metric tons.
Based upon the IPCC study that would put my yearly environmental damage monetary equivalent based upon my carbon output at $55.08.
The EPA listed the average single-person household to have a CO2 output of 20,750 pounds annually, and a family of four’s output at 83,000 pounds.
According to the IPCC, that would put those households at a yearly environmental damage monetary equivalent of $112.94 and $451.80 respectively.
If global climate change activists tried to tax households based on these figures in order to combat climate change, I am sure Americans would start to pay much more attention to the realities behind climate change.
But reality isn’t something the American people are all that focused on. Just check the ratings of MSNBC and Fox News.
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Mr. Ridley,
What is your evidence for Global Warming? While I personally believe there are enough people on the planet to incur serious environmental problems, I would be much more comfortable with the "theory" of global warming if we had accurate weather records that went back more than a few hundred years or anecdotes that cover the 5,000 years or so of the “recorded history" you mention in your piece.
Given that the Earth is four billion years, this current real-world data cannot be extrapolated to cover the previous 4 billion years. That's just silly. And as for ice core sampling, climate modeling and other scientific study, most of it is conjecture and best guess and not the foregone conclusion the headline above your editorial suggests. Remember, you can't take ice core samples at the equator to know what happened in terms of temperature going back 100,000 years.
I like polar bears, narwhals and platypus' as much as the next guy, but who is to say that it's not there time to leave the planet just as it was for the dinosaurs and millions of other species that became extinct without the help of man. As for the "genocide in Darfur, civilians death in places like Rwanda, Serbia, and Armenia" these are man-made events." They have nothing to do with global warming.
Over the roughly 10,00-15,000 years modern man has lived on this planet there have been droughts, storms, crop failures, locust, disease, volcanos, tsunamis, and a host of other disasters. Usually, it's man's short-sightedness that results in catastrophe. For instance, we build our largest port, and put our poorest, least educated people in a bowl below the water line in region known for having hurricanes and act surprised when a Category 5 storm comes along and wipes out a few thousand people in New Orleans. It's a tragedy to be sure, but it's certainly not the result of global warming. It was the result of a hurricane coming ashore where it has many times over thousands of years, and our own stupidity. And if you want to eliminate the biggest so-called "greenhouse gases" (methane) don't worry about your carbon footprint, just kill all the cattle, dogs, pigs and chickens and we'll be fine.
For better or worse, man and his messes, like the one now being witnessed in Haiti, are part of the evolution of this planet. Will we ever be able to control the cyclical nature of weather, climate change and other things? Perhaps, perhaps not, but don't have us buy into the "theory" that man is responsible for global warming because you say so.
Peter Salinas
Sarasota, FL
Are you the same Peter Salinas of Sarasota, FL that works for an automotive consultant publication? An auto industry which has sank millions into trying to get people to ignore global warming and discrediting those scientist that attempt to prove its existence.
Of all of Earth's atmosphere, approximately four percent is comprised of greenhouse gases.
Of all of the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, approximately three percent is comprised of carbon dioxide.
Of all of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, approximately three percent of that amount is man made.
How much pain and suffering do we want to cause to eliminate 3% of 3% of 4%? How many millions do we want to starve so that we can burn food in our gas tanks? How many people do we want to have lose their jobs so that our vehicles can be made less safe for travel? Regardless of what we do, we are leaving 97% of 97% of 96% unmolested.
Picture a football field. Of all of our atmosphere, the green house gases represent the first three yards from the goal line. CO2 represents but the first 3 1/4 inches. Man-made CO2 represents but the first 1/8th of an inch. Is that worth destroying the world's largest economy, especially when the effects of man-made CO2 are, at best, undetermined?
We live on a planet that has been changing in temperature and climate for billions of years--long before the introduction of the insidious internal combustion engine and the evil barbecue grill.
Our own topography indicates that we were once covered by a mile thick ice sheet. Long before existing in that frozen world, Michigan's surface was covered by a salt sea. Have you ever found a Petoskey stone? It is a fossilized coral. Ever found huge boulder out in the woods? It didn't walk there of its own accord.
There is no question that the earth's climate fluctuates. What is at question is the significance of man's contribution to that change.
The IPCC is not a scientific body but a political one. While it employs a fair amount of well compensated scientists, far more scientists have lined up on the skeptic side of the issue. The IPCC's (and the UN that claims it) main goal is to engage in the global redistribution of wealth from clean industrialized countries to third world dictatorships and theocracies that puke smoke out of factory chimneys in a way that would get them shut down immediately if they operated in Mio or Fairview. It is global welfare at its most benevolent. (Do we even need to discuss the accusations made earlier this month that the carbon-credit market is almost 90% fraud?)
From a historical perspective, current carbon levels are well below norms. From a scientific perspective, most life forms flourish better in high carbon atmospheres. Maybe we should belch out even more CO2 for the benefit of untold species.
I love the planet as much as the next guy. In fact, probably even more than those whose livelihood depends on the slaughter of innocent trees and the usage of petroleum based ink. (Sorry, I cannot help an occasional bout of sarcasm.) Even with that being true, I don't think it is wise to shut down newspapers despite their harm to our fragile environment.
A better idea might be to wait and see what man's affect on climate is before we double down on its elimination. Who knows, we might need to start churning out more CO2 to keep that next glacier from laying an egg right in the middle of Oscoda County.
All I know is that the so called global warming is making Al Gore rich.Nuff said.