Hacked E-Mails Fuel Climate Change Skeptics - NYTimes.comThe New York Times reports that a recent breach by hackers has revealed the back-and-forth discussions between scientists over their climate research:
The e-mails, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years. [...] The documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists. But the evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so broad and deep that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument.
I'm not a skeptic of climate change, I agree that it's happening, I'm a skeptic that it can be entirely attributed to human activity. We all tend to forget that the global climate changes wildly over the course of geologic time, from ice ages to tropical zones, climate is all over the map, but it tends to average out over long time periods. We just happen to be living in a small interglacial period in which the climate is starting to warm up. Perhaps this warming would have happened without human activity. Or, more likely, human activity has contributed to the natural warming cycle.
I think that the global weather system is dynamic and adaptive and that the human impact is actually rather small. I think it would be much more prudent to invest in new technological solutions rather than imposed conservation given that it's entirely likely that even if all of our carbon emissions ceased right now the climate would continue to warm. Why? Because there are natural emitters of green house gasses.
This report notes that, "livestock generate 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than all of the vehicles on Earth." It's the cows, not the cars, that are a problem, but don't expect an environmental activist to tell you that.
At any rate, I follow this topic because it relates to two Bible prophecies: it causes people to be fearful of the future and it provides a rational for world government. Even if global warming was a natural climate trend (or even a hoax) the human experience of global warming still fulfills these two prophecies.
Labels: Future Fear
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