I am including this, not to start another debate on man made global warming, but so that you can include it in your letter to your representative, if you choose to. It is written in terms that even a congress[wo]man can understand. You can also use it to irritate your favorite global warming activist. Hope this helps.
The theory of “man made global warming” has some serious flaws. It is based on dubious data, assumptions, models and projections that vary widely among scientists. It cannot be proven. A simplistic example of a proven theory would be gravity. If you drop something while standing on the planet earth, it will fall to the earth. It happens every time it is tested, without fail. Therefore, it is proven. Many theories in science have been proven, (osmosis, nuclear fission, etc) but there are just as many scientific “proofs” that have completely fallen apart once new data is gathered. All theories need to be examined under the simple lens of: Does it even make sense?
Global warming is the latest in a series of “disasters” that will befall us if we do not drastically change our ways. Science is being used to try and legitimize the argument. One only needs to look back a few years and remember the world famine, the rise of SARS, and the bird flu, which were poised to destroy humanity. One does not have to look far to see the next big disasters on the horizon. Solar storms, shifting of the magnetic poles, ebola, and others are just waiting for their chance to destroy us as well. They are not as popular because nobody has figured out how to capitalize on them yet, so they get little press coverage. This does not mean that there should not be concerns about these issues, but global warming has turned into a political football, and as such has garnered a considerable amount of control of the economy and the purse strings that keep the national and global economy buzzing.
I would not argue the fact that the earth is getting warmer. Studies and data suggests that in many places (but not all) the earth has been warmer more consistently for the last 25 years than any other comparable time in recorded history. This however does not make a looming disaster. The earth’s temperatures and CO2 levels have fluctuated wildly over the course of it’s existence. The EPA’s website on global warming even admits that the reliability of data and assumptions based on that data deteriorate quickly as we go back in time.
Time is an excellent way to determine if it is even plausible (does it make sense?) that humans could have created this pending disaster, and if all the hand wringing and expense will do anything to mitigate it. I freely admit my bias up front, and would argue that it wont.
If we look at things from a percentage of the time the planet has been around, we get an interesting, but somewhat difficult to grasp picture of our timeline. The current accepted age of the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years (plus or minus about 1%-45 million years). Science believes the first evidence of humanoid creatures (“Lucy”) developed approximately 3.6 million years ago (range 3.0-3.6 million years). If that is that case, humans have existed on the planet for 0.8% of the planets existence. (Less than 1 percent).
In 1709, Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686-1736), invented the first alcohol thermometer, and in 1714 the mercury thermometer, what we use as the modern thermometer. He also invented the temperature scale that is used in the US, which bears his name. This means that we have been able to fairly accurately measure and record temperature for about 300 years. This is about 0.00007% of the planets existence. The industrial revolution, which is arguably the beginning of when man was capable of creating the greenhouse gasses that are blamed for “man made global warming” occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830 (Historians can’t agree on this either). Most would agree that it was in full swing by 1830, which means that it occurred about 175 years ago. This is important because we have only had the capacity to create these gasses for 0.00004% of the planets existence. Volcano’s, fires and other natural phenomenon have been creating these gasses since the beginning of the planet. Some studies accepted by the EPA suggest that for two thirds of the last 400 million years (26.4 million years) CO2 levels and temperatures were considerably higher than they are today.
Scientists believe that by observing and measuring certain conditions found in the natural world, and thru technologies like carbon dating, that they can fairly accurately describe and give approximate ideas of what the global temperatures were like. According to the EPA’s website on global warming, they believe the accuracy of their estimations is “pretty close” up to about 900 A.D., and the accuracy deteriorates significantly thereafter due to lack of reliable data. If we assume that our data and estimates are accurate, we can extrapolate that we have a “pretty good idea” of what the climate was like for just over 1100 years. If we look at this as a percent of the planets existence, we “know” what the earth’s climate has been for 0.0003% of the planets history.
Now, lets look at it in terms that are a bit easier to grasp. If we break the entire existence of the planet into 1 calendar year, we can get a timeline of when we showed up and when our activities began to influence the planet. Doing the math, (60 sec X 60 min X 24hrs X 365.25 days {don’t forget leap year}), there are 31,557,600 seconds in a year. Dividing 4.5 billion by the seconds in a year, we find that 1 second is roughly 142.6 years. Humanoid existence (3.6 million years) would be the equivalent of 25246 seconds, or 7 days. The first humanoid essentially showed up on December 24th. So, from January 1st, until just before Christmas, there was no sign of anything that resembled man. Now, again, assuming we have accurate data and have made accurate estimates, we “know” what the world was like for about 7.8 seconds, or put another way, since Dec 31st at 11:59:52. Taking it a bit further, we discovered how to measure temperature about 2 seconds before the year-end, which would be Dec 31st at 11:59:58. We have been in the industrial revolution for just over 1 second, which puts us at Dec 31st at 11:59:59.
Based on this model, we have populated the earth for about 7 days, and can “guestimate” the earth’s climate for just over 7 seconds. We can “accurately” describe the world’s climate for 2 seconds. We have only been able to influence the global climate for just over 1 second. Does it make any sense that we are capable of completely altering the world’s climate in 1/31557600 of the planets existence? I’d argue that it is pretty presumptuous of us to believe that we have that much power or influence.
Now, is the world getting warmer? Of course it is, at least temporarily. There is an abundance of geological evidence that suggests abrupt climate changes have occurred throughout the Earth's history, and human existence arose during a period of “relative” climate stability. As I stated before, there is evidence that it was considerably warmer, and we know that ice ages have occurred several times, which of course are considerably colder. 25 years is not a global disaster in the making, it is a nano-blip in the timeline of global history and based on the model I presented above it is 1/5th of a second. The human race will one day come to an end, and the earth will just shrug and think to itself “glad to be rid of those parasites” and begin the process of healing itself. It won’t be due to man made global warming.
Do not confuse pollution with global warming. We have been absolutely horrible stewards of our natural resources and beauty. There are very few places that do not show evidence of human activity, and as such, are to some degree or another are polluted. Pollution does not equal global warming. If we want to focus our energy on saving the planet, lets clean up the messes that we have created over the short period of time we’ve been here.
