Is it possible to go one day without hearing about global warming? If the temperature feels a bit too warm for a day of that particular season someone is bound to say it's global warming. If it's too cold someone will even float a theory like it must be a rebound effect of global warming. With so much information out there one would think we know exactly what is going on, but is that really the case?
The best way to begin looking at global warming is to ask if it has ever existed, which is yes. There have been countless times in which the earths climate has risen and likewise fallen, including times long before man walked the planet. Has man ever caused global warming? No, man has never caused an incidence of global warming, in fact about the only thing man can do in relation to global warming is be a statistically and actually insignificant contributor to global warming. With that said only two questions remain which are: Are we in a period of global warming right now, and if so what is the level of mans impact on it?
Most scientists feel and agree the mean global temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees Farenheit. Worst case scenarios show this number to be around 1.8 degrees Farenheit which means an average increase of about 0.8 degrees per generation. Is that really a bad thing if true? Are we too believe our ancestors going back as far as two centuries ago had a stranglehold on the temperatue they set as a baseline were accurate? I tend to believe they were anything but accurate which means the entire debate falls apart on that alone.
As a person that has spent a fair portion of the last twenty years working in the fields of meteorology and atmospheric science I will let you in on a dirty little secret you didn't hear about in Al Gore's film or any other sensationalistic releases concerning global warming. That secret is global warming exists if you want it to. If you are against it, well then it does not exist. Confused yet? If not just read on and you will be, or everything will become abundantly clear. It is for you to decide.
The earth over the past one hundred plus years of recorded meteorological and atmospheric history shows no defintive fully accepted consistent rise in the mean temperature of the earth that merits one iota of concern. But the polar caps are melting! Sure, they have been melting and reforming, disappearing and being replaced by new ones for millions of years. What about the hole in the ozone layer? It widens, it shrinks, but it has always been there. There is no time when there was no hole in the ozone layer. Without a hole in the ozone layer there would be global warming along the lines laymen like to interpret what they hear about the matter.
There are literally a few dozen scientists that argue global warming is a growing concern and we as man are destroying the earth. I was one of them once. I was also on the other side of the argument as well at times, only to switch back. Actually I studied and argued each side twice. How reliable am I then to speak on this you may ask if I keep changing my mind? Quite simply I may be more reliable than anyone you will find because I will tell you how and why I argued each side and the dirty little tricks used by some to prove global warming exists.
I argued it existed for money. Scientific research is not free. It requires grants, and before someone or some entity is willing to hand out research grants they want to know if you will and can back their agenda. If you like being employed in the field it is just one of those realities that on occasion you will have to play ball. If someone wanted research proving the temperature was increasing, the atmosphere as a whole was in peril, and it was going to all collapse and irrevocably alter or even destroy life as we know it in four thousand years or four hundred years, we could provide that and argue it without being soundly refuted. If you wanted an argument against it we could give you that too and it was even easier. Global warming isn't a real issue, it's an industry.
The easiest way to make global warming appear to exist is to simply massage the numbers. Now this does not mean fabricating evidence in the least, it is a matter of presentation. Has the temperature increased over the last century? Well sure it has! Just look at Waco Texas the temperature last year was almost 1.7 degrees warmer than in 1907. The fact that several years earlier the temperature was down is just conveniently omitted. After showing maybe thirty areas around the globe with a similar increase it seems pretty convincing. The key is only giving information to support the stance the fund granting agency wants. Sadly this is just the standard operating procedure of todays scientific research community in this field.
Should you be worried about global warming in your life or the next fifty or so generations? Absolutely not. As humans we like to believe we possess the power to destroy the habitability of the earth with our cars, spray cans, and air conditioners, but we can't. Global warming is the industry of fear. Fear is a great motivator for sales. "Go green or the earth will perish!" you may hear. Pure drivel. Go green because green is an industry dependent on global warming being real. If global warming isn't real then why bother spending money buying all these nifty new eco-friendly gadgets out there? Believe me, if there was no money in going green the movement wouldn't exist.
Admittedly man has done some nasty things to the planet. We pollute the waters, we have indiscriminately logged the landscape to death before getting onto a proper lumber replacement plan, and we have made the earth look filthy with the debris we've been piling up in landfills. That is just a part of life on this or any planet man may potentially ever inhabit. The fact is one single volcanic eruption does more harm to the earth than man does over two decades of time. Why doesn't anyone tell us about that and how we need to end that phenomena as it is destroying earth? Quite simply because it is beyond mans control, and being beyond mans control there is no profit in it.
Who am I to tell you what to believe? Believe whatever you want that helps you sleep at night. I would just advise you the next time you hear a scientist speaking out on how horrible global warming is right now that you take it with a grain of salt, after all when his grant runs out he may be on the other side of the argument. Global warming is only real for those whom are making money on it, and I know because I was one of them.