The Cormologist

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Global Warming Swindle?

There has been plenty of controversy over the past few weeks over the ABC broadcasting the Great Global Warming Swindle. A documentary made by a dubious film maker , with obvious exposure tendencies ( not that he exposes himself per se but he does seeem to yell look at me , look at me!). The documentary itself is a collection of data - which in isolation, and with the inclusion of a few scientists whom if they haven't claimed they have been misrepresented are certainly on the fringes of the global warming debate - brings into question man made global warming. I guess it is the fact that those greeny vegie hippies are perhaps right about something that sticks in the craw of so many people. And means that they would like to see the theory of man made climate change disproven. Could explain why the documentary rated so well. What annoys me about this ongoing debate is that a really high proportion of people who are suppposed to know about this stuff, ie climatologists have been arguing these things for 20 years or so and have come down to increased CO2 as the most likely culprit for the recent global warming phenomena. I mean one can plausibly believe that the moon landings were shot on a film set in Arizona; but it is implausible to believe that somehow a cabal of greenies can plant false evidence of global warming around the globe which 400+ climatologists fall for and report to the IPCC. What we should be seeing now is a documentary on the EU Trading scheme - the dodgy way permits were given out, the actaul carbon reductions in different countries as a result of the scheme, how much money power companies have made selling permits to carbon emissions that they never would have emitted anyway, the fact that more than 50% of emissions that have come from developing nations have come from a handful of HFC-23 refridgerant projects in China. But we in Australia are still caught up in the is there or isn't there man made global warming. I can't say for sure, but I also couldn't say for sure that there is actually other solar systems, or other galaxies beyond our own, because I don't understand how the universe works. But I read what smarter people than I have studied - and even if they have doubts about what it is they find - I believe them. The climatic system is the most complex system on earth. Evidence that proves global warming is man made will probably never fulfil the Popper falsifiable doctrine of scientific truth. But the key for me and for our society is - how long can we wait for the evidence? And even if the evidence exists how do you make people believe it? I'm sure that plenty of people still believed the Earth was flat long after Magellan circumnavigated the globe. Sure continue to debate the science - but by letting a few freaks hold us back from the lifestyle, societal and economic changes that we need to make to attempt to decrease CO2 concentration in our atmosphere is fundamentally flawed thinking.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home