With the GOP 2012 candidate situation continuing to “work itself out”, a lot of the candidates are dealing with their past (and for Newt Gingrich, present) political mistakes and ill-conceived statements. Romney has Romney-care, Gingrich has his 3rd wife (with whom he cheated on the 2nd wife, with whom he cheated on the 1st wife), Pawlenty has his statements on Cap and Trade (Cap and Tax), and so on. In light of Pawlenty’s sin of being in favor of Cap and Tax some years ago (Gingrich was also in favor… remember his Public Service Announcement with Nancy Pelosi?), I’ve been thinking about Cap and Tax a bit this week. Yes, we could make a “market” of carbon credits and other “green” ideas, and it could “work” to an extent, but why waste both time and treasure on something with no real utility what-so-ever. The cap and tax crowd acts as if CO2 is not unlike arsenic, and any detectable level of it is a crime against nature that MUST be corrected. I thought liberals were supposed to be enlightened and highly educated? Don’t these morons know that CO2 is the very molecule that permits all actual “green things” (flora) to exist? Simply stunning.
Speaking of CO2, and its sinister alleged effects, I must say that I find it exceptionally curious that if CO2 is in fact the cause of anthropogenic global warming, how can it be that all throughout Earth’s history, global climate has been warmer with far less CO2 in the atmosphere and cooler with far more. 20,000 years ago the better part of the continental United States was covered with glaciers over a mile thick. Then it warmed! All on its own! No SUV’s, no coal fired power plants, not even the flatulence from herds of domesticated cattle! And do you know why? Because that’s what climate does, it CHANGES! It changes on its own, and it does so in an unstoppable manner. An increase of a few score parts per million of CO2 couldn’t be of any less consequence.
The AGW cult of believers act like the Earth’s climate is the result of some agreement with Mother Nature that we’re now breaking. In their minds the climate is some fragile creation that would completely derail were it not for their careful stewardship. A perfect example of Leftist hubris. In reality, global climate does not react to humans. Humans react to global climate. Climate is perpetually shifting; it always has, and it always shall; a non-stop cycle of warming followed by cooling, followed by warming, followed by cooling. Up until about 150 years ago, no appreciable emissions were being generated by human activity, yet the climate cycle didn’t miss a beat.
The AGW faithful look at ~110 PPM increase of CO2 as well as a barely perceptible rise in temperature since the Industrial Revolution and have deduced both direct correlation and causality! All without any replicable scientific proof! Amazing detective work, to be sure. For the barely detectible rise in temperature, remember, global climate is always either warming or cooling. Any time period selected from Earth’s atmospheric history will have a 50% chance of demonstrating a slight warming trend. The beginning of the Industrial Revolution happened to coincide with the end of the “Little Ice Age” (or Maunder Minimum as it’s called). Much of the “data” used to support AGW theories isn’t really data at all. The output of various climate models is offered as concrete data when it is nothing of the sort! The AGW faithful select a few facts, make some massive assumptions, hire a fellow AGW believer to create a “scientific” climate model, and there you have it – scientific proof!
Glancing over the fact that creating a model for a system with as many variables as global climate is not possible, the models put forth as data are not only created by individuals with financial and professional interests directly tied to AGW activism/alarmism, but those same individuals are also charged with interpreting the invariably inconclusive results!
Thusly armed, the AGW cult members can then loudly assert that driving non-hybrid cars, burning any fossil fuels for energy (affordable energy), and other anthropogenic emissions will destroy the planet, all the while acting much holier-than-thou. Going back to the enlightened and educated left, it amazes me that such allegedly enlightened intellectuals can convince themselves that a ~110 PPM increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is a more likely culprit for any warming than the SUN, even more so when it turns out that the cyclical global warming and cooling cycles just so happen to coincide with solar output cycles. A perfect instance of people believing what they want to believe.
