From GENE LOGSDON
Those of you convinced that global warming is a grave danger should try to forgive skeptical farmer types like me. We deal with potential destructive weather change every day of the growing season. Feeling helpless in the face of an uncaring human society is part of our daily lives.
When Budd Shepherd said that global warming has become “a belief and an ideology… it stimulates the god center of peoples’ brains,” he expressed my opinion dead on. I think what is happening today is that science is assuming the mantle of religion, and climate change is only one example.
I looked up the links some of you kindly suggested, as I have looked at numbers about climate change before. My problem is that my brain is not capable of comprehending those numbers and I don’t think yours is either. When I am told that there are an estimated total of 210 gigatons of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere I have to wonder, especially since science has not yet determined the total size of our “space.” My first question is who is doing the estimating? A gigaton is a BILLION tons. I can’t wrap my brain around one gigaton let alone a flock of them. Even a tiny miscalculation could mean a huge difference. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is reckoned at around 391 ppm at the moment, as I read the numbers. Between 2000 and 2009 that amount increased by 2 ppm. That is an infinitesimally small amount in terms of parts per million over nine years. Am I to be shunned and criticized if I wonder whether such a slight change is significant or if there could be a very teensy weensy error in the calculations and in fact the ppm might have decreased by 2 or remained the same? The scientific community is demanding of me a blind faith in its numbers when there is reason to be skeptical.
But there are better examples of how science is changing into theology. I have been trying to wade through the literature about the discovery of what scientists call a “Higgs boson.” Actually, they don’t think they discovered it yet, after all the hullabaloo. The language of the Higginites is ludicrously obfuscating. A Higgs boson, by definition, is a sub-atomic particle. It has no size. Right away red flags go up in my brain, like when theology tried to convince me that there are three divine persons in one god. In trying to describe this strange boson to poor ignorant farm boys like me, the Higginites resort to amazingly imaginative metaphors. One writer on Google likens a boson to a pure white snowflake in a blizzard of pure white snowflakes, falling on an unlimited blanketing landscape of pure white snowflakes. Another describes the Higgs “field” where bosons roam as “dark energy” in an “invisible mist.” Another tries to make bosons intelligible by alluding to windblown dust sifting off a wall— but the wall isn’t really there. This is the kind of horse manure language that poets and theologians are fond of. I’m actually fond of it myself. But I surely can’t accept deductions drawn from it as fact, especially when the thing with no size hasn’t even been found yet. I think maybe bosons are angels. I wonder how many of them can dance on the head of a pin. The scientists involved don’t like it, but the Higgs boson is being called the god particle. Perfect. Science is trying to identify and define infinite intelligence. It is trying to reinvent God.
When science starts resorting to unfathomable numbers about CO2 or anything else, it is time for skepticism. I am not going to pretend to believe scientific dogma just because not believing it makes me a sinner. That’s religion.
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There is no such thing as scientific dogma. Nobody is making you believe ‘truth(s)’handed down from on high. I’m thinking you might enjoy this article (& some of its links): http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/10/20/349544/berkeley-temperature-study-results-confirm-global-warming/?mobile=nc
And let we must always include into the conversation all those in power that are ‘playing God’ so destructively with all our futures….
“Venus syndrome” is not a metaphor, it is a scientific scenario. The term should be self explanatory, but just to be clear, Venus syndrome is a scenario in which climate and atmospheric feedback loops are triggered that can’t be switched off. Under this scenario, as greenhouse gasses build up, and cause planetary warming, yet more greenhouse gasses are released which causes still more warming. This trajectory does not end in a balmy tropical resort Earth, but rather a planet that is closer to hell. Like Venus, Earth would become a pressure cooking inferno with virtually no life.
There are a great many contributing factors already pushing Earth toward this scenario, but one stands out above the rest. Based on all available data, if the ongoing global geoengineering programs are allowed to continue, “Venus syndrome” will be the likely end result for our planet, and sooner than almost any can imagine. Any that confuse this information with the rhetoric and hypocrisy of Al Gore and his carbon credit scams is making a mistake. What we face is real and has little to do the long list of self proclaimed “environmentalists” and “environmental” groups who have all chosen to turn a blind eye to the most dire and immediate challenge faced by all life on Earth short of nuclear catastrophe, global aerosol geoengineering.
If “cooling” the planet was truly the primary goal of the geoengineering programs, their method is insane at best. The “pharmaceutical” approach, applying a “cure” that is exponentially worse than the ailment it was meant to treat. It is increasingly evident that much more straight forward goals are being carried out with the weather modification, weather warfare programs. Ultimate power and control are inevitably at the root of such programs. All available data indicates, if the geoengineering programs continue, this “power” over the weather, and earths inhabitants, will very soon be at the cost of all life on Earth. Geoengineering can and does create large scale cooling events by blotting out the sun on an immense scale and with artificial ice nucleation of clouds and storms, but it comes at the cost of a much worsened warming overall. In addition to the consequences listed above, simply stated, geoengineering particulates and the toxic atmospheric haze they create traps more heat than it deflects. They are making our already dire situation worse by the day.
Why Are They Geoengineering If Its So Destructive?
Because they can. Because there is no one to stop them. Because, at least for the short run, geoengineering is a weapon of unimaginable power (until atmosphere implodes from these programs).
Too many people fail to consider that we are not dealing with reason or sanity in regard to those that run these weather/modification weather/warfare programs. This is the same power structure that has detonated over 1800 nuclear weapons around the globe. The same power structure that sprayed its own soldiers with agent orange in Viet Nam. The same power structure that has cavalierly used depleted uranium in ammunition in conflicts around the globe. The same power structure that has routinely done biological testing on innocent civilians again and again, there is no sanity in this equation.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Geoengineering has already helped to trigger catastrophic climate feedback mechanisms like methane mass expulsion in the Arctic. Our planet is now changing at blinding speed, and not for the better. All available data makes clear that the climate altering programs have been increasingly ramped up for over 60 years. The Earth and its life sustaining natural systems have been increasingly hampered by these programs, till at this point, the effect of the massive global geoengineering programs are so total that our planet is literally in a “straight jacket”.
Humanity has decimated the biosphere in countless ways, there is no rational argument to deny this fact. This being said, the single greatest decimating factor far, based on all available data, is the ongoing global weather modification/geoengineering programs. A decimated ozone layer, completely disrupted hydrological cycle, altered wind and ocean currents, triggering life threatening climate feedback loops (methane release), the loss of our once blue skies and photosynthesis, and the literal poisoning of all life on Earth from the fallout. This is their “cure” for the climate disruption largely caused by the geoengineering programs to begin with.
It is now becoming ever more difficult for those in power to hide the all to visible global geoengineering programs and the decimation they are causing. The corporate/military/industrial/media complex will soon be much more active in their attempt to spin the reality and horrific effects of these programs. To “sell” them to the public as necessary mitigation for the increasingly destructive weather we are all witness to. The “Weather Channel” will increase their already ongoing propaganda campaign on Febuary 28 with a new series, “Hacking the Planet“. It is important to remember that virtually all major weather modeling and forecasting agencies are now owned/controlled by the same players that are conducting the climate/weather modification programs. Their job is to explain away the ever increasing climate anomalies and disruptions largely caused by the already ongoing geoengineering.
It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to help in the effort to bring the lethal geoengineering programs to light. We must be out in front of the propaganda effort to sell the globally decimating geoengineering programs to the general public. Educate yourself on this dire issue, get credible materials to hand out, and educate others. Examples of information flyers can be found at “geoengineeringwatch.org/ads”. Get a copy of Michael Murphy’s “Why In The World Are They Spraying”, then make copies, and hand them out.
(Dane Wigginton lives near Mt. Shasta)
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/global-geoengineering-fueling-venus-syndrome/
Well Gene you undoubtedly speak for a great many people. These are the most interesting of times but also the most difficult to understand since so much is new even though the pattern of a dominant culture doing itself in is not. Each geographically aggressive culture has ultimately done itself in with environmental catastrophe. Ancient civilizations, like the Khmer Empire, tended do themselves in by over irrigating, something that our world civilization still does, look at what happened to Australia’s wheat basket. The Romans were more like us and did themselves in by overconsumption by an elite population, that and the lead in their favorite wine drink. Greenhouse gas effects haver been basically understood since Svante August Arrhenius (19 February 1859 – 2 October 1927) described the phenomena. He thought, like some of the loud voices working for the petrochemical industry, that increasing CO2 was a good thing!
Unfortunately, the climate IS out of control and the remaining question is whether humans will survive the Great Extinction that we have unleashed. Smart money says no. Wise money says it is worth a try to reverse the suicidal pattern of fossil fuel use in hope that we can evade that fate. I don’t believe in taking hope away from people, so I encourage the later approach, but as a scientifically trained person who reads widely in the subject, and have an understanding of the runaway greenhouse gas process, I believe in the former. Shush, don’t tell anyone.
ybera
There’s a huge difference between the so-called Higg’s boson, which can’t even really be detected with the CERN Collider, and climate change, which can be observed by anyone old enough with a functioning memory. This is a classic Straw Man argument. No one knows what will actually happen with our weather and environment (although the ice is in fact melting), but so far, it’s not looking good.
My favorite analogy for temperature rising (using Fahrenheit) is to use your own body. We’re “normal” at 98.6° F mean body temperature. You get a little cold, and it might rise to 99 or 100. Some discomfort there as your natural immune system tries to expel an invader causing the illness. But what about a four or five degree rise above normal? How do you feel at 103 or 104 degrees? Can anyone truly imagine a global mean temperature rise of six degrees?
My favorite deus ex machina is a scenario where minor nuclear powers decide to fling their primitive weapons up about two hundred miles (anywhere above the ionosphere) and set them off in a pattern that causes a massive EMP covering the entire world such that industrial culture comes to an abrupt halt. Our sometimes national candidate John Lewellan published a book about this, most of which is transcript of Congressional testimony. That not improbable event, as the Empires high tech warfare pushes people further back in a corner, might possibly allow for a climate crisis that is considerably shorter than, say, 100,000 years and might result in enough of the flora and fauna to survive in refugium that a human population, hopefully much wiser, could survive. Let’s hear it for our species survival!
So, is your ignorance supposed to make me skeptical? If we start throwing out everything in science that you don’t understand, we won’t be left with very much will we?
We all take most of science on faith, but that doesn’t make it religion. There are no gods, demons, or angles involved. No magic. It all depends on natural and explainable phenomena. And, you are welcome to challenge science. however, an appeal to folksy ignorance is not a legitimate challenge.
I think Gene should stick to farming. If he cannot imagine the numbers involved, he is already lost to understanding the problem. If a farmer hasn’t noticed the changes, maybe he is not a farmer? I’m 68 years old and I CAN see the warming changes in my lifetime.
The numbers are a little hard. Doubt if that is the best way to understand the issue. If Gene provokes any dialog then that in itself is a good. Regardless, if people understood the climate issue the way I do I think I would see more folks stumbling around in a daze, experiencing climate shock. It is as if there was a small fire in a fire works factory. The CO2 is just the fuse. I keep finding new positive feedback loops that are discovered and the trajectory of temperature rise keep rising with each new factor added to the mix.
I keep hoping folks will read The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage, ignore everything but Step Two. It describes how self sufficient colonies can be constructed on artificial islands over the ocean deeps. Getting a whole lot of these siphons bringing up cold water from the deeps and the minerals in solution generating current with thermocouples and using it to plate out minerals from the sea, mostly calcium carbonate I think. Anyway, I wish I knew how to do the math but a great many of these things sucking carbonates out of the water can only help. Besides, floating islands seem to be a natural solution to rising sea levels.
ybera
Tech is the cause, not the savior of climate change. It will NOT save the human species from near turn extinction. ALL tech requires a world of energy resources that EXCEED those needed for basic survival. We are fast approaching the end of such energy supply and as it goes, so goes tech.