Whatever Happened To Acid Rain?

Last week Cal Thomas wrote an interesting article that was published in the local newspaper. In it he decries the latest "Chicken Little" theories purporting our imminent demise as a result of global warming. I have to agree with his assessment. I find the premises for "global warming" or "climate change" illogical at best.

I am often amazed at what the general public will swallow. I suppose Joseph Goebbels was right when he said,

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

It would seem that this is the pattern that we are seeing played out on a global scale. The UN has been propagating this version of 'truth' with the support of many other governments.

I guess it doesn't hurt their case when the South has been pounded by a record heat wave this summer! Much more of this and I'll be looking to move to a cooler clime! Scotland sounds awful good right now!

I think that there are a couple of things to consider in the whole climate change debate - if that is what you want to call it since Al Gore has refused to debate the issue, and dissenting voices are largely either mocked or ignored.

The first issue is whether or not there is actually proof that the entire earth's climate is getting warmer. The second issue is what is causing the change if there is one.

There is a good deal of evidence that seems to indicate that there has indeed been a warm up of some kind. I am reminded of news articles that I have read that purport that the ice over the North Pole has melted, glaciers are retreating, and tropical storms are getting stronger. I also have noticed that our winters in NC seem to be milder than they were when I was a kid.

Does all of this mean that there is a permanent climate transition underway? I doubt it. We have also had a couple of the coldest and snowiest winters that I can remember over the past 5 - 10 years. I tend to believe that this warm up is part of a natural cycle. This belief seems to be supported by evidence that Mr. Thomas mentions in his article. Apparently, the warmest years on record weren't in the late 90s as NASA had once reported, but actually occurred in the 1930s. That sounds cyclical to me. I am also reminded of the belief in the 1970s (also mentioned in the Thomas article) that we were headed for another ice age.

Everything in creation tends to cycle. There are natural fluctuations in nearly every measurement that man can take. (Yes, I know that there are some standards: speed of sound, speed of light, force of gravity, etc.) Thus, my belief is that the evidences of warming are part of a normal cycle.

What might be causing the warming that has sent Chicken Little scurrying for the escape pods? The most plausible answer to me is differences in solar radiation. There are certainly fluctuations in the activity of the sun - an article that I read the other day suggested that it was this sort of solar activity that drove the water from Mars.

I suppose that a simpler explanation, though one that probably wouldn't resound with the scientific community, would be that God has caused this heating up. Could it be that the Almighty is trying to get our attention? Granted, if He is trying to cause us not to sin, heating things up is probably not the way to do it - at least for me. The hotter I get, the crankier I get! With heat you also get the inevitable shedding of layers of clothing - not the best for avoiding sin either. Another reason I prefer fall and winter to spring and summer!

One thing that I refuse to believe is that by driving my car or using electricity that I am contributing to the problem of global warming. I simply find such a claim illogical. First of all, I would point to the industrial revolution. There was so much smoke in the air at that time that buildings were literally ruined by the stuff. Now, our air isn't the cleanest, but it isn't anything like that. Secondly I point to the newly revised data that the 90s weren't the hottest years on record, but instead the 30s were. America's greatest industrial progress came in the 40s, 50s and 60s. We should have been hot as a fire cracker during that time if these hypotheses were true. Thirdly, are the volcanic eruptions that throw tons of "greenhouse" gasses into the air. From what I can gather, volcanoes erupt many more times the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere in one eruption than man can contribute in a year. Thus, if the theories are true, we should see a global temperature spike with every eruption.

There is another thing that I refuse to believe - the dire predictions of the consequences of "global warming." The great fear has been that with global warming we would have massive flooding due to the melting of the polar ice caps. According to Steve at Hog On Ice, Florida is still there even with the melting that is going on. Could there be changes in weather patterns? Of course, but this is nothing new. We know from ancient times that weather patterns have changed. I think that they call it flooding and/or famine. According to the ancients these changes were evidences of divine displeasure, but there I go getting God involved again.

I guess that the bottom line is this: people need energy to live. We could go back to life in the stone age, but here is a news flash - they produced "greenhouse" gas then too. There are over 5 billion people on the planet. Even if we went back to living as the Amish do - without electricity, without cars, without tractors, etc., we would still be burning something all the time. What effect would that have on forests? (Which, incidentally, produce tons of "greenhouse" gas themselves.) I tend to think that we are much better off with the comparatively cleaner alternatives from electricity that have been developed than we would be with greater deforestation that would be required by going back to more primitive means of sustaining life.

Sometimes I think that the environmentalists would be much happier if there were no people here to muck up the place. Well, I suppose that would probably be true for creation, but the damage was done by Adam, and considering the resistance that the world has shown to the second Adam, I doubt that things will be appreciably better until Christ's return - even if man were forced out of the pool.

All of this is not to say that I think that we should just consign earth to becoming a massive landfill. We have a tremendous responsibility to steward this earth. Man has historically not taken this stewardship seriously. The near demise of American Bison and total annihilation of other species worldwide is evidence of this sad truth. However, North Carolina has shown that when people put their minds (and monies) to it, it is possible to reverse some of the damage done by man's wanton greed and disregard for his actions. Dang, there I go bringing sin into the picture again!

My home state has done much to clean its rivers and restore habitat for both game and non-game species. I am encouraged by their successes. I suppose that some of the alarmism displayed by the various environmentalists comes from the sad realization that without some shocking headline - some global crisis - no one will even hear their message. And if no one hears and no one fears then nothing will be done. They aren't the only ones who use these tactics. The NRA does it all the time.

There are so many things that the money being wasted on global warming could be better used for. I know it is Utopian, but what about working towards requiring manufacturers to clean up their own mess and not just bury it or dump it into our rivers and oceans? That's a pretty worthy goal. Or how about exposing the ways that the oil producers, automobile producers, and politicians have conspired to stifle cleaner, more efficient technologies? Why not use that money to develop and produce these technologies to actually compete with the establishment?

In the seventies we were told that a new ice age was coming. In the eighties the problem was acid rain and holes in the ozone layer. It is time to stop manufacturing environmental bogeymen and start dealing with the actual problems.