By Dan Lenard
Buffalo, NY – I share this planet with the rest of humanity. I want to protect it. To maintain clean air, clean water and sustainable eco-systems, ours and many other governments have created many laws to protect the environment. Enforcement of these laws has improved the quality of our resources. Lake Erie, once declared dead in the mid 1960's, is now a recovering fishing ground, thanks to the elimination of phosphates. However, no environmental issue has influenced public policy over the past 15 years more than global warming. Our entire environmental policy seems to be geared to deal with this phenomenon. Yet, no one seems to be questioning the research and theories of global warming. Our economy, our way of life and our very future depends on the policies being created to deal with this threat. Shouldn't we have some clear proof that global warming is actually occurring and if so why?
I'm not a scientist. But then again, neither are many people who focus on environmental issues in the political arena. OK, Let's just suppose global temperatures may indeed be rising. Again, the question is, why? Many are blindly following the theory that man and his technology are causing this supposed warming trend. That the fluorocarbons our cars and industry spew out are raising carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere and trapping heat. The so-called "Green house effect." I want to ask a simple question. Explain to me, before man ever lit a match, how the last ice age ended?
Planet Earth has been around billions of years. Clearly, it has warmed and cooled many times, in cycles, over the millennia. I don't recall scientists taking readings of temperatures as recently as the battle of Jericho. There's little accurate data to compare temperature trends now to those of a billion years ago let alone a thousand. Based on that, you can't logically compare temperature change over a hundred years as an indicator of long-term effect. You can make assumptions. However, you can't be Chicken Little. The Earth heated up and cooled off long before apes freed up their thumbs, stood erect and started their SUV's. The Ice Age indicates that the earth cooled significantly and then warmed considerably over time. Why? Does the Earth wobble in its orbit causing sun angles to become more extreme? Some theorize it does. Did we sustain a cataclysmic hit by a meteor or Comet, causing plumes of dust to blot out the sun? It's a theory. So it is with global warming.
This simple question about the Ice age shreds the paradigm of technology causing global climate change. Yet, some scientists and our media continue to push this issue into the forefront without much balance. Research has shown that if you're told something enough, you actually start to believe it. Most people I discuss this with believe, without reservation what we hear and read about global warming. What's more freighting is that opposition or counter to this theory is met with disdain and sometimes, outright hostility.
Because of global warming's near universal public acceptance, the issue has been taken up by those who benefit most from exploiting it. Those who push this questionable science on us have a political axe to grind. From what I've observed, it has little to do with their concern for the planet except for who rules it. These are the people who blame George W. Bush for the Hurricanes.
The millions who rightfully want to protect our precious little blue sphere, need to stop for a second and look outside the box of popular culture. These so-called "authorities" on global warming present easily refutable evidence, but the masses just accept it as gospel. Weren't we all told to question authority?
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