Pseudo Science

Although this blog is ostensibly about technology, I sometimes run across a scientific article that I just have to comment about. This one is from USA today dated 11/8/04 entitled “Global warming blamed for huge western USA wildfires.” These academic yahoos are actually spending grant money to arrive at the conclusion that multi-year drought conditions and forests that have been artificially allowed to get overgrown have less to do with the recent fires than an estimated 2 degree rise in global temperature!! Scientists can’t even predict the weather more than two days out; why should we accept their hypotheses based on tree ring data?

I admit that this whole global warming scare is a hot button for me - it triggers some sort of B.S. alarm way back in the dark recesses of my brain. After reading several books and articles over the past ten years or so that outline all the cataclysmic changes that have occurred over the geologic and biological history of the earth, especially all the various ice ages (that last of which covered half of north America with glaciers) you can’t help but wonder how objective these scientists are and how many assumptions are hidden in their “conclusions.”

For one thing, we only have reasonably accurate global temperature readings for no more than 100 years which is less than the blink of an eye in the history of life on earth, much less geologic history. Given that the temperature of the earth results from a very complicated interaction between chemical reactions and magnetic currents in the earth’s core with massively complex interactions between the atmosphere and all life forms on the earth’s surface and under the oceans and also taking into account continuous changes in the magnetic poles and solar events that also cyclically alter the earth’s magnetosphere ---- with all that how does one form a conclusion about what really controls the surface temperature of the earth over extended periods of time? Especially when you only have temperature data for 100 years?

My inherently skeptical nature leads me to conclude that this whole global warming business is a Trojan horse perpetuated by environmentalists and scientists alike. First the scientists hypothesize a theory so they can get published and continue to get grants to support their research. Then come the ever so pragmatic environmentalists who eagerly pounce on these reports claiming that “scientific evidence suggests” that man is the culprit and we should eliminate all factories, refrigerants, campfires and all internal combustion engines on the planet.

This is sounding like a rant isn’t it? Maybe I can blame it all on Michael Moore.