by Arlos » Wed Aug 02, 2006 11:30 am
To be fair, Mindia, you did freely admit that your science background is quite limited. Not trying to slam you in any way, please understand, or insult your intelligence; everyone has things they are and are not good at, (me, I suck at foreign languages), science just doesn't happen to be YOUR strong suit, as you said. So, when people who ARE skilled in science state their opinion, you might consider giving some weight to said opinion, regardless of their political leanings. Because, I assure you most heartily, that by no means are everyone who believes in global warming trying to push some liberal agenda. The myriad of scientists with PhDs in environmental studies who DO believe in GW believe in it because that's what they feel all of the data they have available to them points to. These scientists are not confined to any one end of the political spectrum, there are conservatives and moderates a plenty as well.
Take a long look at who subsidizes many of the scientists who speak out against global warming, and I think you'll find that the vast majority of them are associated with big businesses who have economic cause to disbelieve in GW. As a result, I consider their opinions to be as tainted as the opinions of the medical doctors that worked for Tobacco companies that repeatedly swore, under oath, that there were no harmful side effects to smoking, that all those cases of lung cancer were coincidental.
BTW, when scientists talk of cyclical effects, they're not talking on a scale of 10 years. They're talking on a scale of several centuries or millenia, 10 years is too small a time span to be able to discern changes that occurred in the past. As I have said before, even if you believe that the underlying cause of most of the effect we've been seeing is due to cyclical effects (and I know you do), the megatons of pollution we spew out cannot POSSIBLY be good for us, right? It has far more effects than just global warming or impacting the ozone layer.
Consider it as something akin to Descartes' challenge about believing in God. As he put it, if you do believe in God, but he does not exist, you suffer no negative effects from your belief, either while living or after you die, and indeed, you may well have seen a number of positives from it. If you DON'T believe, however, and he DOES exist, well, then you're fucked. heh. Look at Global Warming the same way: if we do work against its effects, and it doesn't exist, all we've done is help clean up the planet and made life better for everyone by cutting pollution. However, if we DON'T work against its effects, and it DOES exist... well, then we're ALL fucked.
-Arlos