Walking to work today, I had a thought about the whole controversy over global warming. Scientists are predicting all kinds of dire global climate changes that are supposed to happen years into the future. That's all well and good.
Yet, they can't even accurately predict the amount of snowfall 24 hours out from a storm. Meterologists will give a range of 3-5 inches or 4-6 inches. So, if the it only snows one inche, they're wrong. Partial credit simply isn't given. They might have gotten the snow part right, but the amount is consequential as well.
Why are they wrong? Because the complexity of climate and atmospheric interactions. The scientists admit that they simply can't figure all of these things out.
So why should we trust the climate scientists who say that we're undergoing global warming and that it's man's fault?
I recognize that man can change the climate. Urban areas have a heat-island effect, and establishes microclimates that have different temperatures than the surrounding rural areas. But that doesn't mean you can extrapolate and say that the entire planet is going to be X degrees warmer.
And using a limited data sample doesn't help your cause either. We only have limited records for the past 100+ years, and satellite data from the last 40+ years.
One good volcanic eruption might change the climate far more profoundly and completely than decades of machinery emissions. How do we know this? Because we've seen it happen. Tambora. Krakatau. Years where there were no summers because of the amount of ash and emissions thrown into the atmosphere.
To take global warming as some certain truth takes a leap of faith I'm not willing to make. It is a theory, and one that needs to be studied closely. Regulating emissions is a good idea because I like to breathe clean air, and so does the next person. But making wild claims about how the earth will be X degrees warmer in 50 years loses a bit of the luster when the scientists can't figure out what the weather will be tomorrow.
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