Author: Ed Leafe
Posted: 2007-08-24 at 09:45:58
On Aug 24, 2007, at 9:45 AM, David Crooks wrote:
> I keep hearing people say that and wonder why couldn't man's existence
> on this planet have some effect on temperature? I am not being
> argumentative. Just curious why folks keep insisting that global
> warning
> is not man-made?
Follow the money.
Whenever there is a "controversy" being raised where there is no
actual controversy underlying it, it's because someone is afraid of
losing money. In this case it's the oil companies and others who are
raking in record profits; words like 'conservation' only mean that
people will buy less of their stuff. So they stir up a fake
'controversy', buy a couple of supposed scientists to speak out
publicly against the issue, and instruct their media minions to begin
spouting the same baseless crap, knowing full well that their
listeners are likely not to understand science at all, and will be
easily convinced that the political agenda is on the other side.
There is an excellent article in the August 2007 issue of Scientific
American that correlates a lot of the data into a very consistent
picture. Sure, anyone can take any one piece of information and find
some way to call it into doubt, but when you see lots of data on
various independent phenomena all correlating tightly, that's much
harder to explain away. It's a lot like the 'controversy' over
cigarette smoking: you do realize that the relation between smoking
cigarettes and cancer has never been proven, either? It's impossible
to do a scientific proof without stringent testing, and killing
controlled groups of humans isn't acceptable. But things such as the
rise of lung cancer from a nearly non-existent disease to a leading
killer of men 30-40 years after the introduction of cigarettes, and
the subsequent parallel rise of lung cancer in women 30-40 years
after smoking by women became socially acceptable. Can you find
anecdotal evidence that contradicts this? Sure; hell, I had a great-
aunt who started smoking when she was 12 and lived to be 95, smoking
heavily the whole time. All that shows is that anecdotes do not
constitute scientific testing.
The actions by the oil companies today in questioning global warming
is very much like the efforts of the tobacco industry to constantly
cast doubt on the connection between smoking and various diseases,
even when overwhelming evidence showed the connection to be true.
-- Ed Leafe