Image of Sun's UV radiation from NASA
No, this title does not mean that overnight I have miraculously accepted that humans are destroying the planet. ;-) It means that the hysteria over AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) is very dangerous for us all. Allow me to list my primary points first, and then we'll discuss them in more detail.
1. It is a distraction from very real and immediate threats to our well-being.
2. It gives people a false sense of control over things that they really can't control.
3. It aims to "equalize" the entire globe which is contrary to the very laws of Nature.
4. It seeks to shift power and influence from those who provide, support, and sustain progress to those who want to stifle, suppress, and cripple growth and development.
Point 1
We have a global war on terror and many other serious and immediate concerns that are much more likely to cause widespread death and destruction than normal climate changes. Do you think that any Iraqis are sitting around worrying about an impending Ice Age or Hot Age? No, they are fighting for their basic rights and survival. AGW is taking valuable resources, attention, and energy away from helping them attain a decent way of life. If half the AGW activists would actually stop frivolously expelling extra CO2 and would concentrate on truly improving the world, we might actually see some progress.
Point 2
We cannot control the global climate, by "accident" or by "design". We do have a limited effect on our local conditions, but this influence is like gravity and weakens significantly with increasing distance. For the AGW alarmists to make people think that we have more control than we do is a delusion that we must not accept because it gives people a false sense of security. While we are told that we must go to extreme meausures to keep the global average temperature at some imaginary "ideal," we are not putting enough time, thought, and resources into preparedness. The Katrina disaster is a perfect example of this problem. Instead of throwing blame around people should say, "Wow, we really need to make some real and tangible plans to deal with natural disasters." Not, "Wow, we really need to stop these natural disasters." That is pure foolishness!
People need to wake up from their delusion of controling Nature and start doing real things to prepare for when Nature gets extreme. Instead of putting time and energy into manipulating emissions, etc., our leaders should be spending much more time on designing plans for evacuating people from threats and delivering food and water and assistance to those who could not be evacuated. They need to establish plans for mass communication in the event that the usual technological communication is disabled. And so on. The bottom line is that people must begin to focus on readiness and preparedness, as our long ago ancestors had to do in order to survive so that we could be here.
Points 3 and 4 (combined because they are so closely related)
Is the climate significantly changing? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. In the long term most of us won't live to really know. And there's a question in my mind as to whether or not we should really be all that concerned with "global climate" anyway. Sure, the weather is global system, but it is so variable and unpredictable that to view it from one angle is just silly.
And from the policital perspective the AGW movement is at its heart seeking to "redistribute the wealth" in the guise of "saving the planet" from the greedy consumers. The United States, we are told, uses the largest percentage of the world's resources and so on. Well, the United States also pretty much supports most of the world economy. The communist AGW alarmists hate the ecomony and anything that might cause some to have more than others, regardless of the effort they expend for themselves. I think that communism violates the laws of nature because it seeks to equalize all things, but that is absolutley NOT the purpose and drive of life and evolution. If things never changed then there would be no life. The very essence of life is change. The AGW movement is trying to stop the process of life. And that is just plain wrong.
In this day and age of 24 hour weather channels and news broadcasts we are much more aware of what is going on in places other than our local areas. The weather has been sensationalized to boost ratings. More people are living in areas where people haven't lived before, like all along the coastlines and in other less than stable places. The weather hasn't really gotten worse. We are just more aware of it and more people are being affected by it due to their choices of habitat.
You know, if our ancestors had taken the philosophy of the AGW alarmists and had put all their time and energy into trying to control the climate instead of adapting and preparing for it, we wouldn't be here.
Say, why don't we show a little appreciation to the cavemen who have endowed us with the ability to plan and prepare? Maybe it's because I might be a Neanderthal ;-), but I've always kinda liked the Geico caveman:
Incidentally, I'm in good company in my views on AGW. ;-)
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