Global Warming and propaganda: Why I'm suspicious
Community Rating:
Sign up to rate, write comments and more
You have probably heard that the scientific consensus is that global warming is happening and it will cause very bad things to happen in the near future.
At the same time, you may have also heard that thanks to this "consensus" of "everyone", we should consider "global warming denial" similar to Holocaust denial and shut people up who are trying to say it's not happening.
This raises a huge red flag in my mind.
When is it that you tell your significant other or child to "shut up"? Is it not when you have a sneaking suspicion that they are right, and that you don't want to hear it?
It's the same here. Suppressing any speech is a dangerous game. If your case is accurate, there's no question that you will gain your best traction against your enemies if you can meet them in intellectual battle and defend your side.
If you are trying to suppress speech, that means you don't think you can win an argument against your opponents. That makes your case look pretty weak.
Often people "argue to authority" - Person X is against global warming, you should be too. Or they argue based on people's perceptions - Oil companies are funding research to pooh-pooh global warming, you should contribute to us so our vital work against global warming happens.
But there are plenty of eminent scientists who do not agree with the publicity-driven consensus. And many scientists say that the topic is sensationalized beyond belief. You might also want to consider that environmentalist-funded research is just as likely to say that global warming is a problem than oil company research is to say it's not. In other words, both sides are interest groups and they are both advertising their cases. Nothing wrong with that, but listening to both sides, instead of blinding your ears to one of them, is the best way to learn the truth.
One thing that really makes me upset, and has caused me to write on this subject, is that people who write on global warming don't say that weather is a tradeoff. Global warming probably means better weather in most densely populated parts of the USA.
One account I read said that a consequence of global warming would be for Boston's climate to be the same as South Carolina's is today. It seems surprising that the person who wrote that didn't sit back and say "Wait, hold on a minute, I'll bet most people in Boston would RATHER it be that way!"
I grew up in Boston and never want to return to that frigid wasteland again!
There was another article I read about the impact of global warming in New York. It said summer temperatures would be warmer. It forgot to mention the warmer winters, which would probably please many New Yorkers. Likewise, it mentioned higher air conditioning bills, but said more electricity would still be used - there would be little offset during the winter season.
Why? The article did not address this question, but I know the answer. Of course this is because we don't normally use electricity to heat, we use oil and natural gas. So you will have much lower gas bills and higher electricity bills, something I suspect the average Northeastern household would be just fine with.
My personal research indicates that it's most likely that solar activity cycles are what determine the overall climate, not greenhouse gases. We are in a lowering period of sunspot activity, which may mean colder weather in the future.
Finally, I should admit that there are reasons conserving energy is a good idea. Fossil fuels are getting more expensive due to higher demand, and the way to decrease that expense is to use them more intelligently and efficiently. But I don't think we should go into a panic about global warming until we know for certain what's happening to our planet, and whether the new warmer world (if it even exists) is good or bad for us.
Future developments like the all-electric Tesla Roadster are already appearing to make fossil fuel dependency a thing of the past. There are going to be a lot of stumbles in this research area, but rest assured that a revolution in energy use is on its way through this and other projects. They will take a while to become mainstream, but the work is already being started.
I recommend the book "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg if you're interested in learning more. He specifically names programs that are endangered by the extremely high spending on global warming, which would serve real problems.
D