Posted 1/22/2007 05:45:00 PM by Douglas

Glacial evidence in the past 100 years would indicate that something is up with the increasing global temperature, but is it really a slam dunk between human's use of fossil fuels and global warming? Now some scientists aren't so sure.

Scientists long have issued the warnings: The modern world's appetite for cars, air conditioning and cheap, fossil-fuel energy spews billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, unnaturally warming the world.

Yet, it took the dramatic images of a hurricane overtaking New Orleans and searing heat last summer to finally trigger widespread public concern on the issue of global warming.

Someone please explain the connection between green-house gasses and Katrina? I know many people would love to make the connection, but they're all equally full of shit, and if we caused Katrina, why were there only five hurricanes in the Atlantic in 2006, and only one of which made landfall in North America? Hell, look at the hurricane tracks all the way back to 1851. For every 1886, there's a 1883. 2005's snapshot in time is supposed to be incontrovertible evidence that this is man-made? That's horseshit. But it goes on:

In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.

"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.

Well that government grant money ain't free, and you don't get a check to cash by disagreeing with the status quo.

For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: "I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. ... In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history."

Vranes says, "When I hear things like that, I go crazy."

Is it guilt? Are they just trying to retain what's left of their credibility? Who knows. But I've got a stack of Newsweek and Time articles from the 1970s espousing the future destruction of the planet from global cooling that I'd love to post as soon as I find the time. And a scanner.

Labels: global warming