I’m scared shitless about climate change, and Tweet about the topic often. This has resulted in an ongoing dialogue with Dan Nolte, a nice guy and regular Tweeter who strongly disagrees with my take. I invited Dan here to make his case. You can follow him here.
“The science is settled. There is no debate.”
This ignorant statement has been repeated many times by those who believe in man-made climate change. You also hear it from President Obama during every State of the Union address.
Back in the 1977, “How to survive the coming ice age” was the headline on the cover of TIME magazine. I was born that year, so I don’t know if the science was settled back then. In 2006, “Global Warming, be worried, be very worried” graced the cover of … TIME magazine. Was the science settled at this point? Well in 2007, 70 percent of climate scientists predicted the Arctic Ice cap could be gone in seven years. Pretty alarming. So what happened? The exact opposite—its now 42-percent larger [Jeff’s Note: For clarity, but not to debate Dan, there are varying reports of the ice cap’s condition]. But wait, now it’s 2015. Now the “science is settled.” And if you question any of this you are considered a right-wing, Tea Party nutjob.I guess there is no room for independent thought, just pick a side and go along. BS!
Science is debatable, math is not, so let’s not confuse these. An equation like 2 + 3 = 5, is as basic as you can get. Well if it turns out 2 was actually 3 then the result should be 6, right? As far as climate science appears to be concerned … absolutely not. A couple of months ago temperature data came under scrutiny when The Daily Telegraph reported that historical data was increased by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius in certain temperature stations throughout the world. Does this matter? Of course. But do both sides of this “debate” want to get to the bottom of this and figure out what happened? Nah, let’s just ignore it. The planet is melting, dammit!
When dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was five-times more CO2 in the atmosphere than there is now. The earth was almost much warmer. Why? Natural-occurring climate change. Volcanic activity was spewing tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Ice ages then came along. Why? Natural-occurring climate change. And an asteroid possibly hit the earth, resulting in a nuclear winter (as the sun could not penetrate the clouds of dust form the impact). My point: Natural climate change will always occur, because it has throughout the history of the earth. How much impact does man have? I believe some, but I don’t believe New York City is going to be underwater in 20 years. I also don’t believe “all humans will die by 2030″—as Bob Geldof stated at a climate summit in Europe a few years back.
These crazy predictions are offered by people who have huge voices in the climate change community—so people just blindly choose to believe them. I choose not to be associated with them. I also choose not to be associated with the deniers who believe everything is fine. I just have questions. Which, surprisingly, makes me a minority on this. And instead of trying to develop an answer, most people will just attack my position and refuse to acknowledge that not everything is right here. One side will attack Democrats and one side will attack Republicans. Like that’s hard to do.
Back in September 2014 there was a big climate change march in New York City. Even Leonardo DiCaprio was there! So what happened? Generation-E (entitlement) “activists” left tons of garbage behind on the streets. Apparently they believe someone else who cares about the environment as much as they do will clean up their mess.
If you ask real questions you are a denier. Blizzards are now considered extreme weather events (and have names). Common sense is gone. The less we know the more we believe.
Yes, there is no debate. Because there never actually was a real one.
