First I would like to say thanks to everyone who has showed interest in this blog. I apologize for not writing sooner, but I've been extremely busy with the first week of college. I hope everyone is doing well, and I look forward to discussing this topic and many others with you all.
So as you can tell, our topic here is "Global Warming." I'm sure everyone has heard this phrase before, and most have probably heard that we are currently in a "climate crisis" and that our climate is drastically changing because of our Carbon emissions. Global Warming advocates argue that the carbon dioxide produced by our vehicles is causing the Earth to warm, the ice caps to melt, and so on. This is what is called "the greenhouse effect." They argue that since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is able to trap heat, its increased levels are the cause of the recent warming. I'm here to tell you that we have been terribly misinformed. We've not been totally misled...we simply haven't been told the whole story. I'll try to keep this as short and interesting as possible.
The Overall Picture
One can't deny that the Earth has warmed up over the last few hundred years...it certainly has. Most of us have seen a graph showing the temp increase since the start of the 20th Century. It probably appeared as if the temp has sky-rocketed...this is due to misleading graphs. Most graphs I've seen have misleading scales, which can fool the eye if you're not paying attention. So, when you boil it down and actually look at the data, you can see that the temp went up only about .6 degrees C in the 20th Century, which is about 1 degree F. Now that's what I call "drastic!" But yes, the temperature has indeed gone up. But it has also gone down. (We will discuss this cool-off later.) Global warming activists argue that the Industrialization of the world and the introduction of the automobile are the cause for this increase, since they have led to more CO2 in the atmosphere.
But did you know that there is no factual evidence to prove this link? Yes, CO2 is able to trap heat emitted by the Earth, but it is a rather small and weak component of a more complex and necessary system of gases that traps this heat (our atmosphere!). Water vapor is much more effective and accounts for 95% of the trapping of heat, with Carbon dioxide accounting for a mere 3% of the trapping. Of the total volume of the atmosphere, CO2 accounts for only 385 parts per million. That means about .04% of the atmosphere. How could that small portion of the atmosphere cause drastic changes in the climate? It just doesn't make sense. The bottom line is that there is no evidence that directly links CO2 with the warm-up...there is only speculation. There are many factors that must be taken into account when you talk about the global temperature, and greenhouse gases are only one of them. It's sad that the theory of human-induced Global Warming is being taught in textbooks and classrooms when it hasn't even been proven and when there is so much evidence to the contrary.
The Earth has always gone through cycles of warming up and cooling down. The global temp of 1,000 years ago was about 1 degree Celsius warmer than it is today, just as it was about 1 degree Celsius cooler than today 1700 years ago. There was "The Middle Age Warm-Up" and "the little Ice Age." Were there automobiles emitting CO2 thousands of years ago? Of course not. No one knows exactly what has caused these rises and falls in temperature...because there are so many factors to consider and we have so little understanding of the majority of them. And that is the bottom line here. We can't simply blame the Earth's small rise in temperature on one simple and rather miniscule factor, especially a factor that there is no factual evidence for! Now let's look at some of the specific things that Global Warming activists don't want you to know.
A. Global Cooling
If Global Warming is indeed occurring because we are constantly putting more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, then why has the global temperature not steadily gone up as we emit more CO2 every minute of every day? Why have there been periods of time in the last century when the Earth has cooled off drastically or has maintained a constant temp? In the 1970's there was widespread panic about a potential oncoming Ice Age! And did you know that the overall global temperature has gone down 8 years in a row? In 2007, the overall temp went down .63 deg. C, which was enough of a cooldown to virtually erase all the warming that occurred during the last century. Have you heard that this last winter was the coldest in China in 100 years? Or that Baghdad had its first recorded snowfall? North America just had its snowiest winter in 50 years. Many scientists have predicted the Earth to cool for the next 20 years. I doubt Al Gore and his friends in the mainstream media would want you to know any of this. By the way, Gore is making millions from the Global Warming frenzy with his Carbon Credits program. Look it up if you don't believe me.
B. Misleading information about Arctic and Antarctic Ice
I'm sure we've all heard the hype about how all the Arctic/Antarctic Ice is melting and how sea levels are subsequently going to rise and flood coastal regions within the next few decades. News headlines say frightening things like "Arctic Ice levels at lowest point on record" or "Arctic Ice may completely vanish." What you don't hear is that the satellite imaging that provides these ice records has only existed since 1979...not even 30 years. So when a record is broken, it's not much of a record. And what is further misleading is that the media will make such announcements right in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere's summer (in the case of Arctic ice), when the ice will clearly be most susceptible to melting. In the case of Antarctic ice, it surpassed it's record high levels last October (the most ice since 1979).
C. Sunspots and Solar Activity
The activity of the sun is the most important factor in determining global temperature...without it, there is no heat energy to trap. Studies have shown that the amount and strength of sunspots (patches on the sun's surface that contain more energy) have a relationship with global temperature change...when there are more sunspots, the Earth receives more energy and, thus, heats up more. Solar flares from outer space have also been shown to have a relationship with temperatures by influencing cloud formation. During the 1980's and 90's, as the Earth warmed, there were many sunspots and solar flares which gave the Earth more incoming energy. Since 1998, sunspots have all but vanished, and as a result we have had cooler temperatures. The information on sunspots is the very reason that scientists have predicted a cooldown in the next 20 years...because it is expected that there will be very little solar activity that will provide us with extra energy. Could this be the dominant cause in determining global temperature? Many believe so.
Why is this important?
Okay..so you may be wondering why I would even bother to write about this. Why not play it safe and jump on the carbon-dioxide-free bandwagon that almost everyone else has jumped on? Even if these people are wrong, it can't hurt to cut Carbon emissions, right? Wrong.
The problem with this whole situation is that it is drastically hurting our economy...most notably, gas prices. That's right...our recent $4.00 per gallon gas is linked to the chaos created by Global Warming. Most, if not all, liberal Democrats have bought into or helped produce this whole scheme of man-made global warming...as a result, they have turned themselves and most of the public into environmental nuts. They won't let us drill right here at home in Anwar or off the coasts because they're afraid that we're going to turn the Earth into a sauna. Liberal Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't even let the bill that proposes new drilling be voted on! A bill that would stimulate our economy, lessen our dependence on foreign oil (we wouldn't be giving as much money to countries in the Middle East which, in turn, give our oil money to terrorist organizations), and lower gas prices by creating a greater supply of oil. (I will eventually dedicate a blog post to better explaining this bill and why it must be passed). If these Global Warming advocates had their way, anything that emits CO2 would be banned ASAP. That includes me and you. Don't forget...we all exhale a lot of CO2 every day. Okay, so maybe they wouldn't ban everything...but they would definitely try to rid the Earth of gas engines. We can't let this unproven theory dictate our economy. Oil is the life-blood of our economy, and it must be available at a reasonable price for the economy to function properly. I'm all for alternative sources of energy, but you can't just throw oil out the window. Until another source as dependable as oil is developed, oil is the only way to ensure the survival of our economy. It's not our enemy..it's our amigo.
So, what now?
Just stick with the facts, and leave the speculation alone. It is obvious that there are two sides to the Global Warming story, and we should definitely look at both sides. I encourage you to do your own research about the situation, so you can form your own opinion. Here are some links:
http://www.libertyunbound.com/archive/2008_09/contoski-warming.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html
http://www.climatehotmap.org/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1977496/posts
Thanks for reading. I hope I haven't bored you. Please feel free to say anything you want or to correct me wherever you see fit. Catch you next time.
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