I am having fun with Chad at CCK, but I would note that this does not mean that I dislike him. Chad has been more than civil with me in the past, and I am not inclined to forget that. If we engage each other in strong language, well, that is what the blogosphere is for. That having been said, I could not resist commenting on Chad's recent global warming post. Chad recently questioned whether I should be writing on global warming, as if I were some kind of expert. Now he has this, in reply to Dakota Voice:
The current global warming cycle is completely unrelated to any past periods of "warming" or "cooling" of the earth's atmosphere.
Unlike previous periods of warming, the current period is irreversable because of the destruction of the Earth's ozone layer brought about by human activity.
Now I admit that I am no gen-you-wine climatelogocial scientist, like Chad or Al Gore. But I do read about it in gen-you-wine scientific journals like New Scientist, Nature, and Science. I can't imagine anyone remotely familiar with the scholarship saying that past periods of climate are "completely unrelated" to the "current global warming cycle." If the earth is currently in a natural warming trend (it is), then the effects of global warming have to be teased apart from that. It is precisely the possibility that human activity is amplifying a natural process that makes global warming alarming. Besides, how can one talk about "the current global warming cycle" without relating the current situation to past trends?
Second, it strikes me as silly to speak of "irreversible" warming. I think what Chad has in mind is the "tipping point" argument: past a certain tipping point, warming will create a cycle that man can no longer do anything about, with disastrous consequences. But this argument rests on the evidence for tipping points in the past. Somehow the old girl recovered from past tipping points, which means that they are hardly irreversible. So there is nothing special about the present case, except that it is happening to us. That is reason enough to be concerned about global warming.
Thirdly, Chad confuses the ozone layer problem with global warming. I don't think they are related. Global warming is increased, according to the theory, by an increase in greenhouse gases, not by anything that is happening to the ozone layer. If the ozone layer is destined to thin further due to man-made release of chlorofluorocarbons, this will be a problem, as more harmful radiation will get from the sun to our sensitive skins. But that, as my Arkansas relatives would say, is a whole nuther issue.
Finally, Chad says this:
I pray to God every day thanking him for creating science.
Forgive me if I am skeptical. I too treasure science. I certainly regard science as a better authority on questions such as we are discussing here than the Bible, wonderful as that book is. I regard Charles Darwin as one of the two greatest scientists who ever lived (the other being Newton), and Darwin is one of my heroes. But maybe if God did create science, it behooves us to approach it with less bluster than Chad exhibits.
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