Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Speaking of Al Gore and Global Warming

Fascinating stuff from the UK Telegraph.

Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase.

Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.

What's going on here? What's of real concern and what isn't? If there really isn't anything to worry about, why are some scientists raising an alarm? I hate to ignore this issue if it's real, but it's incredibly stupid to put ourselves through economic hardships (and make stupid political decisions) if it's not.

1 comment:

Nylarthotep said...

Excellent post. I needed to see that.

Logically dumping all this carbon into the atmospere is going to have an effect sooner or later, though what that effect is may not be as obvious as I'd like to think. I'm still more for stopping burning fossil fuels to castrate the oil rich despots in the world.

And more Nuclear power can only be a good thing.