Where is my White Christmas?
Today I would like to think out loud about my (and yours as well) lack of a white Christmas. Is the cause of all of this global warming, or is it really something altogether more benign? I for one call the latter. Let’s think about this rationally for a moment. We shall begin now…
First of all let us acknowledge a few things:
1: There are a lot of people on this planet who drive cars.
2: There are a lot more people on this planet that DON’T drive cars.
3: Factories pollute, and so do cows.
4: “Global Warming” is natural. The Earth has variances too. Things aren’t the same every year.
5: “Global Warming” is perhaps accelerated by human contributions.
The most interesting fact of all: The world is actually still coming out of an ice age. Yes, the Earth is in an interglacial warming period. During these periods, the glaciers recede and the average temperature on the Earth rises. Bet you didn’t hear that on Fox News. Now it is plausible that human emissions (oh my, how crass) may accelerate this warming period, but it has not been proven. I am not an expert, but I do not believe that the increase in global temperature is on this aggregate death-spiral that so many seem to think.
Something you should be worried about: China. There are over a billion people in that country and nearly as many do not drive an automobile. China is in a growth phase right now and in the near term, many of those citizens could actually realize the joys and frustrations of a personal automobile. Even if EVERY American had their own car, that would still be only 1/3 of Chinas’ potential. Which is a nice segway into my next post: Alternative Fuels.
Am I right? Is New York going to be swallowed by the sea? Please leave your thoughts in the comment box below.
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by Larry
On December 26, 2006 at 7:45 pm
Fox News told me it was the commie liberals’ fault.
I’m loving the lack of snow personally. I don’t ski or snowboard, and now I don’t shovel, sand, or slide across the road towards what will probably be my cold death in a snowbank. Mmm… no snow. Hooray!
As far as the China thing goes, if they manage to get the entire car thing going, I’m buying stock in every car company that makes one of those ridiculously small cars designed for anywhere but America.
Alternative fuels? Pfft, we’ve always had a strategy of running our current fuels and methods into the ground or until they kill everyone who uses them. I say we “stay the course” on the oil thing. At least, until I dump everything I invested into Shell and Mobil.
“Sell, you bastards, sell!” *cracks whip*
by travis
On December 26, 2006 at 9:07 pm
Fox News probably told you the dinosaurs died of lung cancer too.
The cold snowbank would preserve you. At least you wouldn’t rot and be stinky. Then you could appreciate what the snow did for you.
I would totally agree about China. One sixth of the world suddenly getting cars? Sounds like trouble to me. Think of all the gas they would use…
I’m going to rant a little about alternative fuels in another post. Stay tuned.
by Chris HP
On December 28, 2006 at 10:29 am
Fox News told me that an African American is suspected of poking holes in the ozone.
Imagine of all of China farted at once? It’d be worse than all of them driving. Instant ozone deterioration.
Also, it’s only the 6th warmest year on record, so it has been warmer before.
by travis
On December 28, 2006 at 9:22 pm
I heard somewhere that if everyone in China jumped off of a 3 foot wall and landed on the ground at exactly the same time, they could fracture the Earths’ crust.
by Ashley
On January 13, 2007 at 7:28 am
Something you may not know…there are more cars in America than people (scary thought). Now onward with this “global warming” catastrophe. As the resident climatologist *cough cough
* I had to post on this one. First off, IT’S NOT GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!! Or, sort of. It’s not like it sounds. During this crazy, the earth is superheating and falling apart stage, some places of the earth are getting colder, and some aren’t changing at all. The south polar ice cap is growing. It’s global climate change. Oh wait, I forgot the sky is falling and we are all going to die. Back to that. I like that you put in there that we’re still in an Ice Age. We are, and the earth has been warmer than it is now, waaaay before humans. But, it has never happened as fast as it is now. The biggest “fear” would be the collapse of the thermohaline circulation, which is a fancy way of saying the oceanic conveyor belt that brings warm water from the Gulf up to Europe. If enough fresh water entered the oceans (ice melting) that could stop working and Europe would get very cold. Then again, we get our weather from elsewhere in Canada and poleward sooo it probably wouldn’t affect us too much. Bottom line: the earth is good, it is so much more powerful and responsive than we are, the only thing that will die if we keep screwing with the atmosphere and the landscape is us and some other little critters. Then, the earth will make more little critters that look different and like our screwed up atmosphere of CO2, and life will go on. It always has for the last 4.6 billion years, I can’t imagine it would stop because we think we’re bigger and badder than the planet, we’re just screwing ourselves.
by travis
On January 13, 2007 at 7:39 am
Thank you Ashley. I was hoping that you would shed some more light on this. I do have a question though; Is the accelerated warming/buildup of CO2 something we could have an impact on if we took steps to reduce our emissions from cars/factories?
by Ashley
On January 13, 2007 at 7:56 am
CO2 and some other greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for so long that even if we stopped emitting EVERYTHING right now, we wouldn’t see the effects for 50 years, it would still warm just from what’s already there. What we’re seeing now is still contains build up from the post WWII suburbia stage. So yeah, we could have an impact for our great grandkids, and at this point that’s really the best we can do. They are trying to do other tihngs to remediate the effects…like increase marine algae populations since they are huge (numbers wise) consumers of CO2, but that causes some other problems in the food chain, too, plus they cloud the water and make it hard for other things to survive. So anyway, that’s why you hear a lot of people say we can reduce “global warming” (I hate that term…makes me think of The Day After Tomorrow lol) by 2060…it would seriously take that long. But then again, how do you regulate emissions from 3rd world countries who are just trying to make a buck and build their infrastructure? There factories don’t have emissions controls. Or China? I can’t wait to see what comes of all this.