Antoher Inconvenient Truth - Al

Why is Greenland called Greenland?

Cause when the Vikings DISCOVERED it about a thousand YEARS ago it WAS GREEN

They were traveling west from ICELAND -- where, the Vikings, big on rape and plundering, were short on IMAGINATION.

Iceland they named ICELAND cause it was MOSTLY ICE.

And GREENLAND, when they discovered it, was MOSTLY GREEN !!

So? What's this got to do with Global Warming, and the price of oil?

The earth is in a constant STATE of CHANGE.

It was HOT, it was COLD, it was HOT again, it was COLD. I suspect it will be HOT again. And then at some point in the future it will be COLD -- AGAIN.

It's been going on this way for about THREE BILLION YEARS.

The nature of the earth and I would imagine, the universe is CHANGE.

Concerned about species dying out because of Global Warming?

When was the last time you, personally, SAW a dinosaur or a mastodon, or a saber-toothed tiger or a pterodactyl?

Shit happens. I'll tell you the God's honest truth -- I DON'T MISS EM.

I can't see as how their elimination from the global gene pool has negatively impacted my life, anymore than the loss of the dodo or the snail darter.

Greenland was called GREEN because it WAS.

Then -- LONG before the automobile, coal-fired electric plants, C02 emissions and global warming -- it WASN'T.

When you mentally picture GREENLAND, what do YOU SEE? I don't know about you, but I picture it in my mind like the North Pole without Santa Claus.

Greenland, somehow, ALL BY ITSELF -- or the HAND of GOD -- turned into ONE BIG FRIGGING ICEBERG, of which a piece broke off in 1912 and sunk the Titanic.

So anyway -- ALL this serious discussion about Global Warming is about WHAT?

An INCREASE in C02 gas emissions if I read the doom-sayer's correctly.

Now? While Carbon Dioxide IS the 5th most abundant gas in the earth's atmosphere -- it ONLY MAKES up 3/100 of ONE PERCENT of the TOTAL EARTH Atmosphere.

Know how they say, figures lie and liar's figure? When you START from SQUAT ANY increase from .036% is going to SEEM HUGE.

Scientists HAVE noted that Carbon Dioxide readings in the atmosphere have increased some 35% in the last 50 years. OK? So? That's from about .025% to .036%?

And from that, I, a rational person, and expected to interpret that Greenland has turned from Ice to Green, the Polar Ice Caps have melted, the penguins and the polar bears are all gonna DIE?

Percentage of Gases in the Earth’s Atmosphere

Gas Name	Chemical Formula	Percent Volume
Nitrogen	N2	78.08%
Oxygen	O2	20.95%
*Water	H2O	0 to 4%
Argon	Ar	0.93%
*Carbon Dioxide	CO2	0.0360%
Neon	Ne	0.0018%
Helium	He	0.0005%
*Methane	CH4	0.00017%
Hydrogen	H2	0.00005%
*Nitrous Oxide	N2O	0.00003%
*Ozone	O3	0.000004%

I am a life-long, card carrying Democrat and I like to think of myself, if not liberal, at least well-read and intelligent -- not some George Bush, knee-jerk conservative.

But Al, I gotta tell ya -- I think we got better things to do and bigger fish to fry -- than spending $3 trillion over the next 10 years to unilaterally reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20%.

There is NOT ONE RELIABLE PIECE of HARD scientific evidence that proves that the INCREASE of 1/100 of a percent of IS the CAUSE of GLOBAL WARMING.

This is NOT Cause and Effect -- it is OBSERVATION and ASSUMPTION.

I COULD, for example, tell you over the last 50 years -- 2 billion people have died. That's MORE than all the people that ever LIVED during the last 100 million years previously, AND that the heat decomposition of those 2 billion bodies have been responsible for global warming.

I OBSERVED that an event occurred (Global Warming) -- I OBSERVED that more people died in the last 50 years than ever lived in the past 100 million years -- and I make the ASSUMPTION since both exist ONE MUST have CAUSED the OTHER.

While we are on that one? Let's talk for a second about Global Warming.

Is it REALLY GLOBAL?

I mean -- it SEEMS if the World or the GLOBE is getting WARMER -- shouldn't EVERYPLACE be GETTING WARMER?

I mean -- How is it that Denver is getting warmer and Boulder is getting colder?

How is it New York City is getting warmer and Passaic New Jersey (just across the Hudson) is getting colder?

The FACTS are -- going back to meteorological records for the past 150 or so years is that SOME PLACES ARE INDEED GETTING WARMER -- but SOME PLACES are ALSO STAYING the SAME and SOME PLACES are ACTUALLY GETTING COLDER.

For those of you who are interested in numbers, not surprisingly, it ALSO DEPENDS on WHICH YEAR you USE as your starting POINT in the past 150 years -- whether, those cities are ACTUALLY GETTING WARMER or COLDER.

Seems we had a mini-Ice Age in the US in the early 1800's where all the rivers in the Northeast (where most of the temperature recording was done) froze over all winter.

A little personal aside here, I like museums, historic museums -- living history museums are one of my favorites.

Ever go to a Living History Museum and see those HORSE DRAWN SLEIGHS? Having been raised in the South -- that was, for me, always a trip.

As a child I seldom ever had even seen SNOW -- so the idea of having a HORSE DRAWN SLEIGH in your barn or garage was a REAL MIND STRETCHER.

Flash forward -- today -- I SEE snow-storms in the Northeast -- but they appear to be hit and miss affairs (unless you live in some god-awful place like Buffalo where you have lake effect snow ALL the time) and the snow is gone in a week or so -- and knowing the hardcore frugal New Englanders -- it just doesn't seem to make that much sense that they would have had something as expensive as a dedicated snow vehicle for 2 or 3 intermittent weeks of snow travel -- if snow and ice WASN'T on the ground considerably longer in the 1800's as it is now.

Which means, that IF we are getting warmer -- AND I DON'T DISPUTE THAT THAT MIGHT NOT BE THE CASE. Then it is HIGHLY possible we have been getting warmer for some time, certainly LONG before SUV's and Coal Fired Electric Plants.

Do we KNOW that C02 IS TRULY the CONVICTED CRIMINAL -- or is it perhaps just a CONVENIENT BOGEY-MAN?

In our headlong lemming rush to solve yet another of the earth's catastrophes, I am reminded of the U.S Forestry's Service Plan to protect our National Parks and Old Growth forests. They, along with Smokey, decided in their collective wisdom, that ALL FOREST FIRES were BAD. OK? I'll bite, Al. That doesn't seem much more unreasonable than an increase in C02 (a known greenhouse gas) leads to global warming.

Then came the devastating Yellowstone fires of the 1980's -- and what they discovered, much too late, was -- without the naturally occurring fires from time to time -- brush grew up where there HAD been fire-meadows and natural fire-breaks. Some seeds only germinated (the Giant Sequoia among others) as a result of FIRES. Fires -- also, it seems, introduced a diversity of plant life for the woodland critters.

What had seemed SO OBVIOUS for nearly 75 years to the Forestry and Parks Service -- was TOTALLY WRONG.

Now -- I am not a rocket scientist -- but I will tell you -- in NOWHERE in the last 10 years or the media or Al's movie HAVE I SEEN the CHART I JUST EMAILED you.

I didn't make it up -- I simply GOOGLED it, after reading a book by Michael Crichton -- called "State of Fear" Crichton, is not some loonie. He is, if you remember, the former medical doctor, who gave up medicine for writing and gave us such books as Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park. In other words, this guy HAS a fairly serous science background and is not some run-of-the-mill sensationalist.

I would recommend you read the book -- I must confess -- it certainly changed MY way of looking at things.

The book is basically a whodunit thriller about a team of scientists who set out to thwart a world catastrophe by eco-terrorists. The gist of his premise -- is -- we are being led by fear (remember Joe McCarthy?) to a place that is totally unsupported by scientific EVIDENCE. And while there is certainly a PROBLEM -- there is NO SCIENTIFIC CERTAINTY of it's root cause -- NO SCIENTIFIC DATA to SUPPORT that a DECREASE in C02 emissions is a SOLUTION and more importantly to me, NO SCIENTIFIC Methodology that is agreed upon as to what is our STARTING POINT.

Example -- One of the huge arguments on WHY global warming is so bad is that it will result in the extermination of innumerable (and unacceptable levels) of plant and animal species. Are you aware, that scientists DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW MANY how many species of plant and animal life there are on the planet? To which I say, OK if you don't even know how many there are, how are you gonna know when you have lost one? I am simply not one of those politically correct idiots who has ever bought into that global guilt trip that the lost of one species or sub-phyla diminishes us all.

I have never seen a snail-darter or a red-footed salamander. I have never seen a polar bear except on TV killing cute baby seals or in a zoo. And while I think they ARE majestic and kinda like the idea of them roaming free and murdering defenseless baby seals, if you think for ONE SECOND I am gonna live in TEXAS in the SUMMERTIME WITHOUT my AIR-CONDITIONING -- so Nanook of the North can remain proud and free to roam unmolested for another 200 years after I'm dead -- then you you've NEVER BEEN to TEXAS in the summer.

Anyway I digress.

Crichton makes, what I think is a very good case for an unbiased scientific approach to the problems, the methodologies, and the management of the process of seeking responsible solutions.

What would we do if GLOBAL WARMING were CANCER?

Would we solve it by simply running around telling everybody that we're gonna die if we don't change ONE HABIT?

I suspect, if we ever get beyond the sky is falling Michael Moore/Al Gore approach -- what we are going to find -- is there are MANY causes of global warming -- loss of the rain forests, pollution in the air and in our oceans resulting in the ocean's inability to absorb C02 at previous levels, the growth of hydrocarbon emissions in the 3rd world -- particularly China and India (whom, inconveniently, have NO INTENTION to subscribing to the Kyoto Accords) making whatever steps America takes unilaterally insignificant.

Ever walk out onto a Wal-Mart parking lot on a HOT SUMMER DAY?

We MAY even find out that PARKING LOTS and their proliferation, have MUCH MORE to do with global warming than an increase of 1/100^th of a percent of C02.

Crazy? Perhaps, but temperature records in our major cities seem to bear out that leap of thought and go a long way to explain WHY one city appears to show an increase in average temperatures over the last 50 years and another only 30 miles away has actually stayed the same or decreased.

Are we prepared to PAY the BILL to retro-fit all the electric plants, and all the cars in the United States and Canada? Just so Mexico, Brazil, China and India can continue to INCREASE the levels of THEIR emissions?

I'm RETIRED. And I gotta tell you. I keep my thermostat on 82 in the summer and 55 in the winter. Partially over my concern for the environment, but mostly cause I can't afford $300 a month electric bills. I drive a Volvo that gets 30 miles a gallon and Toyota Corolla that gets 35 miles a gallon cause I quit trying to impress chicks with my car once I got married.

I DO sincerely believe we have a personal responsibility to the planet and those who come after us.

I BELIEVE in my heart of hearts that our planet certainly HAS PROBLEMS which we, as Americans, have more than any other country helped to exaggerate.

I BELIEVE if we continue to do NOTHING it will ONLY GET WORSE.

BUT, I also BELIEVE, that to GO FORWARD WITHOUT a GAME PLAN -- BASED on SCIENTIFIC FACT, EMPIRICAL DATA and REASON -- NOT FEAR -- is EVEN WORSE than DOING NOTHING.

To do so under the wide-eyed assumption that we are REALLY MAKING a POSITIVE DIFFERENCE, when in reality we are just going off half-cocked could WASTE YEARS of valuable TIME and LIMITED RESOURCES which I FEAR we DO NOT HAVE.

Anyway that's MY TRUTH

AL? If that's INCONVENIENT, at least it's the TRUTH.

Rick Murphy

March 26, 2008