Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2017 18:44:13 -0400
From: Peter Harkins
Subject: Mr. Kish’s Saturday observations (CL #5810)
Mr. Kish,
To quote a small portion of your post (emphasis in the original):, “THERE IS NO CONSENSUS IN SCIENCE.”
You can not possibly believe in the complete absence of any scientific consensus.
How ’bout the rotund shape of the earth? Or that its age is somewhat north of 6000 years? We can disagree about the nature of dark matter, but is there not uniform scientific agreement that the earth revolves ’round good ol’ Sol?
I expect you really didn’t mean to be so over-the-top emphatic and were just saying there does not exist 100% agreement among scientists that humans have had and continue to have an impact on global warming.
And you are right. It currently only asymptotically approaches 100%.
Warning: anyone with an aversion to numbers, quit and go to the next post 🙂
Mr. Kish, you are also spot on regarding the low concentration of carbon dioxide (in an absolute sense) in the atmosphere; just now increasing through 400 parts per million. And that certainly seems small to most folk.
But it is higher than it’s been in something like 800,000 years – ‘course that’s only meaningful if we accept scientific consensus that the earth is something like 4.5 billion years old. 😉 If one’s faith is that of true fundamentalism, then science has no meaning and one can and should stop here.
Darn numbers. So hard to get one’s head ’round ’em, even when we didn’t have computers to help us understand things. And used paper and pencil. And thought.
True, 400 ppm doesn’t seem like much, but CO2 is a pretty potent little rascal (even more potent than some UNC guards) regarding its effects on climate. By the way, you knew it takes only about 3 ppm of sulfur dioxide to twist one’s nostrils into knots? Now that’s potent.
Perspective: doesn’t take much of some other material to affect life. Much much lower concentrations of lead do serious, permanent damage to children. Much much lower doses of many poisons render us impervious to future taxes, federal or state. And it only takes one sperm out of millions … lots of stuff has big effects in small numbers.
For me – born before the war (ask not which), and many of my acquaintances, given we only have a decade or so left to pay those taxes (even less maybe given the tensions emanating from DC and Raleigh these days), climate change itself, much less its underlying causes, are not very personally relevant.
But those born after us oldies loosened the education system in the ’60s and ’70s – you folk will probably live long enough to experience what an additional degree or two or three of average temperature (F or C) increase will mean – and certainly your children will.
Ironic that the coming rise was enhanced just today by yet another thoughtful executive order signed our fearless (feckless?) leader in Washington.
Mr. Kish, I ‘spect if you are young enough, you will certainly live to bask in the warmth now on its inevitable way. Allow me a recommendation – I suggest avoiding ocean front property, except perhaps cliff side, norther California or New England. And perhaps invest in Carrier (a DC favorite) – the heat wave in Europe some years back did result in almost 13,000 (low estimate – 70,000 high) excess deaths. Of course it hasn’t been quite as bad since. And that’s Europe. 😉
Perhaps we could all consider humor to be a better “h” characteristic in our posts. “Hate” tends to turn off readers – regardless of which side is tossing the bombs.
And I have to believe your God, mentioned in your final paragraph, smiles more than frowns. My faith comes down on the smile side.
Uncle Grumpy