Some say it brings out the best in people, others the worst. Personally, I have always been extremely suspicious both of the science and the people who support it.The problem with the science is that we have so very little to go on and in truth we just don't know what is going on. All scientists think that they are very clever people who know a lot about how things work. The history of science suggests otherwise. What we know in the scheme of things is a tiny fraction of a fraction of a per cent of what is knowable in terms of how things work.
When it comes to knowing a thing or two probably the worst of all possible examples is the weather. We got it wrong when it was fairly stable. What hope when it is not? What is beginning to emerge is that weather is globally linked and that is quite a new idea. Indeed the whole notion of thinking of scientific phenomena as systems is itself in its infancy.
A further problem is that we have only begun to collect data in the last few hundred years so good statistical analysis is simply impossible. Isolated archaeological finds or comments by contemporary writers help a little but mostly no one thought to comment on the weather when they were recording history. Nevertheless, I do remember at school learning that one of the reasons the chartist revolution failed in the 1840s was because on the day the great petition was presented to the government it rained and a lot of supporters stayed at home. British history is never quite like any other!
What we do know about the history of global warmth and weather is that it has fluctuated quite a bit over the centuries with extremes of both ice age proportions and equatorial weather in hitherto temperate regions. I must admit that I find it hard to believe that mankind has had such an impact on the planet that he has diverted the weather system. More likely is that this is just more human arrogance. I don't doubt that the world is getting warmer but I remain sceptical about the reason.
Can so many scientists be wrong? Well, yes, is the short answer but how many scientists actually believe in this unified theory, namely, that wicked mankind has burned too many fossil fuels and must return nature to nature to remedy things. I think the answer is that there are fewer of them than you might think. Sooner or later politics rears its ugly head. The truth is that if you want to get funding for any kind of research these days you have to dress it up to look like it has political significance. Consequently, researchers simply put a global warming spin on their research and obviously keep quiet for fear of never working again. Sad, but true.
My other concern is the group of people who have embraced the global warming bandwagon. It seems to me that every generation has its agitators and the only thing that changes is the cause. There is just a little too much glee for my liking with the way we are supposed to return to nature. Some of this group are definitely bicycle riders and hate cars and I fear that would be true even if it could be demonstrated that the car does not harm the environment. Indeed the gases that come out of the rear end of a cow are supposed to be as harmful as exhaust emissions from cars. So if we moved over to a more rural economy we may very well make matters a whole lot worse.
The real problem is that there are just too many of us. Let us look at the facts - and I do mean facts this time. In 1900 the global population was 1.7 billion. A century later, in 2000, it was 6.1 billion. Half a century later, in 2050 it is projected to rise to 9 billion. As the saying goes - you do the math!
The simple fact is that our global population growth has long since passed the steady rise position and is now relentlessly and exponentially doubling in fewer and fewer years. This fact alone renders all this carbon footprint business useless and futile. Like a plague of locusts we are set to take over the entire planet - unless...
Nature has her way of levelling things out. When one species eats all its prey and prospers to the point of eating all its food supply it dies of starvation, the food supply recovers and the cycle goes around again. The issue for mankind will be one of numbers. If we are unable to solve the problem, and I firmly believe that we do not stand a chance, then nature will solve it for us.
Now, what politician will dare to agree with me?
Pierre
Tags: global warming life as we know it science weather systems statistical analysis archaeological finds history school chartists government revolution rained ice+age temperate fossil fuels nature funding bandwagon bicycle environment cows population
