Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Anti-Technology Global Warming Crowd Cries Wolf

So once again we have very detailed claims on a measured effect of humans on the environment from alarmist scientists. The thing I hate about this is the general public thinks that if a "scientist" studies something and draws conclusions it must be so. Not only are scientists just like everyone else (often wrong) the group behind this report (and the writer of this article) clearly have a bias. As an engineer I consider myself a man of science....any observer with a modicum of reason and healthy skepticism could challenge the statements made by this report. Firstly, two thirds of our resources are used up? This is ridiculous...that assumes one has a definitive known maximum quantity of our resources. Of course nobody actually knows how much coal, oil, gas and even water is available. This also assumes the types of resources are static, which is idiotic as invention increases at a staggering rate using the last 2 decades as a baseline. Hybrid vehicles are selling well and hydrogen vehicles are in prototype phase.....as an example. I'm not arguing that trees, fish and animals aren't being harvested at too fast a rate.....or displaced into extinction. However the theorized impact of air producing tree loss, or supposed food chain impact of everything from insects to elephants is complete speculation. Same for climate change. In fact global warming is the real joke. The scientists who claim that humans are the cause of what they call "global warming" is a claim that doesn't stand up to the facts. The human cause is based on gases and particulates we put into the air primarily because of industry and transportation (vehicles). The problem is that natural occurring sources of these same elements dwarfs the human generated total in a big way. The natural sources, primarily volcanic, have been doing there thing for millions of years...in fact as we go back in time the geological evidence says volcanic activity was much greater in the past and so we can assume was the amount of these bad elements in the atmosphere....yet there was, is, no catastrophic climate change associated with that theory!

The bottom line is that this type of report (and articles on them) should be full of disclaimers similar to those you see in a company IPO. But instead you see only a few numbers and claims labeled with words like "estimated", most are tossed out as absolutes...that's dishonest and to me completely discredits a scientist who either participated in the report or simply signed their name in support of it.

The articles and reports put out by this anti-technology global warming crowd are nearly always accompanied by a not so stealth statement making their disdain for progress clear...in this case it is: "A growing proportion of the world lives in cities, exploiting advanced technology. But nature, the scientists warn, is not something to be enjoyed at the weekend. Conservation of natural spaces is not just a luxury". And what is the motivation by talking about a team of scientists who in 1997 tried to put a value resources or benefits we get from nature for free (as they put it)? So what? What if that number was $33 million-trillion? Ya, we know we need more that just the human organism on this planet to survive. Or are you suggesting we can either take care of nature or replace it by spending that amount? It serves no scientific purpose, it's all about an agenda, an opinion, a political viewpoint since we cannot just replace one with the other. IDIOTS!

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