With the country from the plains of Kansas to the eastern seaboard buried under mountains of snow,the gobal warming crowd has jumped up crying "See we told you so. "One of the loudest voices was former vice-president Al Gore who was quoted as saying,"This is just what the scientists have been saying would happen for decades because of gobal warming."He went on to say that climate change is real and we must take steps to stop it.I ask my readers can you spot the oblivious assumption ,well I should say the two assumptions thatnare being relied on.
The first assumption that is being used is the one we have talked about before,that mans use of fossil fuels,coal,oil are responsible for CO2 emissions and that those emissions are responsible for what is perceived as a increase in gobal temperatures.The second assumption is that the average person listening to or reading about the weather will not notice that they have slowly changed the wording from gobal warming to climate change.The reason for this is oblivious,Ever since those who would blame what is perceived as a steady increase in gobal temperatures on man,have found their arguements losing ground with the general public, they have looked for a way to regain the initiative. Well the way they settled on was to change the language. They would stop calling it gobal warming and instead start calling it Climate Change.It was a really brillant move because climate change can mean anything you want it to mean.
To much rain, climate change is responsible, to dry,to cold,to hot,to many storms,not enought storms, yep its climate change.No doubt about it, the climate is changing and it is because of man.You cannot deny that climate change is happening, after all that is what climate does, it changes.As the old saw goes, if you don't like the weather right now, wait a few hours it will probably change.And since climate change does happen, to deny it makes you look like an idiot,so they automatically have won the argument.Game, set and match.
The environmentalists know that if you control the language, you control the argument.In the 1970's the environmentalists were predicting a gobal freeze,then in the late 1990's with the publication of what has been dubbed the hockey stick temperature graph the argument went in the other direction, gobal warming.Then when questions arose about how the graph was made and the disclosure that some scientists tried to silence their critics,public opinion turn against those who champion gobal warming.Enter Climate Change.
Now I am not saying that wwe do not need new forms of energy, for obliviouly we do. But let us not cut off our nose inspite of our face. Lets find new ways to create energy but also at the same time find ways to make the energy we now use cleaner.To ensure a cleaner environment it is not an either or proposition. We can do both.The question is do we go with the assumptions that have limited answers or do we go with the assumptions that have several solutions. I know what I believe, but the question is, what do you believe?
I know what you mean Richard. I don't know what has caused climate change. I know that it has occurred in the past. I know we have had a lot of volcanic activity which has put tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere at high levels. I also know we have made radical changes to the face of the earth. We have built huge dams. We have skyscrapers. Roads that reflect back heat. We have moved rivers, made lakes, greened deserts and made deserts out of green areas. All of these things must surely have some impact on air currents, water evaporation, etc.. I don't think it is as simple as CO2 alone. On the greenhouse gases front, how about the herds of grazing animals, big methane producers, we have wiped out? To misquote a song 'It's not what we do it's the place that we do it'.
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