Saturday, November 28, 2009

I am skeptical

I guess that this makes me a heretic.

Hmm...It worked for the Catholics (I am still one, albeit just by the hair of my toenails).  It also worked for Freud, after all any one who opposed him was in need of therapy.  It works for the pentacostals and the Mormons, who toss you as quick as you can say, "hey, just a minute here".

Now I guess that I am a bad boy for starting to say "hey, just a minute here" on the climate warming/CO2 debate. 

There has been a whole bunch of good observational data obtained about the climate.  In a whole bunch of places, the temp has been going up.  Nuff said there.

But what I am starting to question is the forward extrapolation made by the climatologists based around data derived in the last fifty years.   I will allow that the data shows an increase in temperature and CO2.  But even that simple statement is fraught with enough caveats and ass-covering as to place it in the banal. 

You see, I feel strongly that any civilization that can create a usage curve for petroleum such as this

is likely to raise the temp a bit here and there.

But that is the point, look at the right side of that curve.  OOOPS.  Looks like we are going to be ratcheting back on the bad stuff tout suite

So, from my point of view, we are looking at a problem in the process of self-correcting.  We are also looking at a vigorous minority of the population who are pressing aggressively for societal change and looking at "global climate change" as their covering motive. 

The sad part about environmentalists is their utter lack of patience.  We are going to return to the radically simpler way of life they espouse, but it will be done in the ring village that will deconstruct the mega-cities.  We will drop our use of oil, but it will be through the population loss that comes with the final failure of the "green revolution". 

You see, environmentalists are the sort of folks who think that by holding hands and singing kumbaya, we can keep what we choose and advance to a better place.  Noble thoughts those.

I on the other hand, am an old cynic, content with the fact that the world rolls around the way that it is supposed to.  We will reduce oil use because it ran out.  We will reduce population the old fashioned way, with war and pestilence and famine riding around, partying like it was 1999.

We will end up back to where we ought to be.  A world population of around 1-2 billion.  A more local and constrained lifestyle. 

It's OK

Welcome to history.

2 comments:

Mayberry said...

A logical conclusion. I still think man made Gorebal Warming is a farce, but like you said, the point is moot...

Jacob Gittes said...

Wow. Someone else who sees it my way!
I'm trying to save a few gems from our current and recent past civilization to while away the time with. Tube radio (shortwave, etc.). Turntables and vinyl. Just found a first pressing of a Buddy Holly record from 1959! Fade away...

Mayberry: I believe that CO2 is pretty much proven to be a greenhouse gas. The various feedback loops that might make global warming (man-caused) worse, or lessen its effects (cloud cover, snowfall, etc.), are still unknown. Also, what if man-produced CO2 emissions actually help to prevent what would otherwise have been an ice age? Anything is possible.
Even if global warming is not a problem, at some point in the near future, increasing human population will cause a cascade of nasty effects, due to resource depletion, environment effects, and social effects (war, conflict, disease).
Numbers don't lie... humans take up physical space, if nothing else. At some point, every square foot of the planet would be covered with humans, if nothing reverses the trend.