Musings

I read an article on Reuters this morning which revealed that “The American Enterprise Institute, which has received $1.6 million from ExxonMobil, offered scientists up to $10,000 for a "policy critique" of the U.N. global warming report released on Friday.”

In addition to the dough they offered the skeptics in the scientific community, they said, "And so we were looking for voices who could illuminate a middle road, a third way ... so that we could move out of this bipolar dynamic and move on to something where you could find more reason for discourse."

In other words, they are soliciting opinions that are not entrenched the extreme positions on either end of the debate on human vs. natural cycles behind the current global warming. Well, it seems to me that there is much to be said for trying to get a ‘God’s eye’ view of the situation.

For example, if another volcanic event such as the eruption of Mount Tambura were to occur, it would release more ‘industrial pollutants’ into the atmosphere than all that has been produced by human society since the Industrial Revolution.

And, there is strong evidence that points the finger at solar cycles as the main culprit behind today’s global warming. The contribution by humanity to this natural cycle may be limited in scope. It will, of course magnify the impact of cyclic events, and compress the time-frame in which these events occur.

Our new perspective must go beyond the mere bean-counting of carbon dioxide and associated greenhouse gasses & their control, and instead ask the question, “What happens to all of the methane hydrates that have accumulated for eons, and are now stored on the continental shelves of the world’s oceans and in the Arctic Tundra?”

Well, it turns out that a 5-7 degree C. increase in average global temperature will cause this stuff to be released into the atmosphere. And it is 50 times more dangerous as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide! Some scientists believe that about 250 million years ago, the world’s oceans ‘belched’ a huge volume of this gas (due to an impact event) and the resulting global warming killed 90% of the world’s species. This, and the unanticipated acceleration in the melting of the earth’s ice caps were not taken into consideration in the global warming report.

And, there is the ‘Coming Ice Age’ camp. There can be no doubt that planet earth goes through pretty well-defined periods in the deep freeze. Much, and in one case, all of the planet’s surface is shrouded in ice. Most of the scientists that support this view believe we are currently in an inter-glacial warm period that spans about 15,000 years. So, might it be beneficial for all of these greenhouse gases to be in the atmosphere and thereby extend the duration of this period of warmer weather?

So, in the face of the truly uncertain future of our climate system, it seems to me that we should avoid the temptation to freak out and start shutting down our industrial civilization willy-nilly. Instead, we should start an immediate assessment of our industrial base with a view to retooling it to support the production of goods and services needed in the effort to restore and control the composition of the atmosphere, and the planet’s weather system.

This is really the third line in inquiry that should be pursued posthaste.

And we should avoid this type of planning: