On a daily drum beat, we hear politicians, “climate” activists, and mass media haranguing the American public that we should be leading the world in fighting climate change; that the American taxpayer should be combatting climate change to the tune of $50 trillion in the next five years. Our gross domestic product (the total value of all the goods and services we produce in a year) is $23 trillion and our national debt is $31 trillion and growing, eclipsing our gross domestic product. Interest on the national debt has risen to $395 billion this year. Where is this $50 trillion coming from?
More importantly, before we commit what amounts to our total national wealth times some unknown factor, shouldn’t we come to a national consensus in terms of exactly what constitutes climate change? Shouldn’t we have a real…real…national debate, relying on real science and real facts? Because of the strident, doomsday, methodology of the change fanatics, we naturally get “climate deniers”. As is always the case, fanaticism on one side engenders fanaticism one the other while fact lies somewhere in between.
The climate change adherents lay claim to the “true science” citing, as usual, their experts and proclaiming “their” scientists are the true scientists. Anyone who knows anything about scientists knows that if you get ten scientists in a room, you will get twelve different sets of “facts”. That is the nature of science. Anyone who utters “the science is settled on this or that” hasn’t a clue about science. Science involves hypotheses, objective facts, researc, conclusions based on the hypotheses and facts, then other hypotheses are formed followed by…well, you get the picture. Time and circumstances alter both facts and hypotheses.
A truth we don’t much wish to accept is that as often as not, researchers will report “preliminary findings” primarily as a means of getting funding for their research. The more dramatic the “findings”, the greater amount of funding. A lucky researcher may even get a federal grant to conduct his research, report the “appropriate” results, and get further funding, or, if lucky, further funding and tenure at a university which will also get funding. Cynical you say? Yes, indeed it is, but it is as real as it is cynical.
I will admit right up front that I have my questions. I am not a “climate denier”, but neither am I a “climate zealot”. I’m more of a skeptic; I need the objective science and the historical perspective.
I remember Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth proclaiming we are all doomed by, I believe, 2009. Well, 2023 and the sky has not fallen. So “global warming” went to “global cooling” went back to and finally went to “climate change”.
“Climate change” tells us the planet is warming. Temperatures will rise 1 degree Celsius in the next few years. Questions must be asked. The earth is warmer. Warmer than when? 2020 tied 2016 for the hottest summers on record. What records? How far back do these “records” extend. We think it “honest” to note the currency of the temperature changes.
At the same time, Britain was snow free all year.
From the 14th century to the 19th century, Britain and North America were hit with freezing cold winters and mild summers due to what has been called “The Mini Ice Age”, with average temperatures dropping two degrees. Lakes, rivers, and seas around southern Britain froze up to two miles from the shore over the winter of 1683-1684.
1n 1850, in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, scientists observed increasing temperatures. Do to industrial pollution? Possibly…but in conjunction with the earth coming out of a mini ice age. The natural cycle can also be cited as a reason for global warming.
In the 5th Century, AD 449, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes migrated to Britain from their native homelands along the coast of the Baltic Sea (we learned that in history class). They were an agrarian people, farming the fields. Why did they leave? Year after year with more frequency, their farm lands flooded where they had not flooded before. History now tells us this was a warming period on the earth.
The “Roman Warm Period” was a period of unusually warm weather in Europe and the North Atlantic which ran from approximately 250BC to AD 400. Observers of the period said that date trees could grow in Greece but they would not bear fruit. Along the Aegean Sea this is true today, which implies that South Aegean mean summer temperatures in the 4th and 5th centuries BC were within a degree of modern ones. That and other literary fragments from the time confirm the Greek climate was basically the same then as around AD 2000.
Cooling at the end of the period is noted in Southwest Florida, which may have been caused by a reduction in solar radiation reaching the Earth and that may have triggered a change in atmospherical circulation patterns.
So here were are. Caught up in a “The Chicken Little Conundrum”. Too many “chickens” and not enough fact checking. When someone says the planet is getting warmer, we must as in relation to what time period? Over the history of the Earth, where does this fit in the total pattern?
As I said early on…I am NOT a “climate denier”, I am simply just someone who would like facts, unvarnished by idealogues.
We have solar panels. Why? They save me money…lots of money.
We have a solar pool heater. Why? The sun is free…and here in Florida, it’s hot.
We have a hybrid water heater. Why? It saves me money (about $40 a month to heat water).
At the right time, I will buy an EV. Why? Fluctuating gas prices. Remember my electricity is free. And…yes I know about charging stations at gas stations. Remember, I said…at the right time.
If these, and other things, “save the planet” or “reduce my carbon footprint”, so much the better. You see, I think we are selling this green energy thing in the wrong way. The best issues are pocketbook issues.