Final thoughts

Contrary to what the first two blogs may have inferred about my personal stance, I think that global climate change, pollution, and conservation are extremely important. In my mind there is no question that our consistent burning of fossil fuels and CO2 emissions into the atmosphere are not good for the earth, and we should do what we can to limit it. The same with preserving our natural parks and wildlife. The questions that I wish to raise is that these doomsday scenarios and fear mongering about environment are jeopardizing the balances in other aspects of our lives, and are biasing our population to the point that soon we will have a populous that is unwilling to listen or question the issue of climate change.

Ethanol, once touted as the environmental solution to fuel/gasoline use in the world has instead increased corn prices to levels never seen. Food prices have risen as a results; corn for feed has gone up, farmers have forgone wheat fields to plant corn because of higher prices and bread prices have gone up. As a result millions in Africa have been extremely malnourished and starving because of ethanol production. A few years later dairy farmers are selling dairy cows for slaughter as milk prices with deflation have dropped but feed is still expensive and they can't afford low-production cows; even then it is predicted many farms won't make it through the year. The world food bank chief called it(ethanol) essentially the greatest disaster of the past 50 years.

The fact is that models are just models and therefore do not guarantee anything; they can be compared to current data and track backward but the starting points and parameters are all variables that can seriously change the projections. Satellite imagery of the globe from space has been used to measure temperature for the past 30 years or so has measured average global temperature has actually decreased .2 degrees C. Contrary to that data however is ground based measurements which say there was an increase of around 1.7. Again the debate goes two ways. And that is my point. Data can say whatever we want it to and therefore climate change needs to be a debate; not a one sided discussion. The same can be said for the 'irrefutable' link between CO2 emissions and global warming. The chart for the past 150 years shows both increases in CO2 and temperature rise averaged upward. Yet a lawyer would zoom in on the date to argue this point; a 20 year stretch where CO2 rose rapidly even (late 60's to early 80's) yet temperatures dropped significantly every year for that time period. So much so there was some panic that the earth was actually entering a mini-ice age!

So how quickly we forget and move on to the next panic. I would encourage everyone to read what they can from the far sides of both of the arguments; the truth will be somewhere in between. I for one will attempt to see Al Gore's movie; to see his arguments/beliefs, but doubt I will come away from it changed. The earth has been here a while, it will continue to be here a while, change is nature; that is evolution. To 'preserve' nature is against nature itself, we as humans cannot preserve (ie prevent change) we are only changing something else. Its an interesting train of thought.