Tales From The Travels

In February and March of 2007 I had the chance to hear in lecture two scientists that represent the opposing sides in the global warming debate. Google either of these scientist if you would like to find more reference material on the opposing sides of the debate.

The scientist lecturing in favor of global warming was Kevin E Trenberth from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. He was one of the lead scientists on the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which made a new assessment on global warming this last spring.

The scientist lecturing against global warming was Richard Lindzen from MIT in Boston, Massachusetts. He has been a vocal critic of global warming theories and has been in the news quite a bit this past year.

Trenberth gave a very good argument that global warming is quite a problem. If anything, his argument was a little too good in that he deluged the audience with graphs, facts, and figures. As a scientist, I was hard pressed to keep up. Many of the students I spoke to afterwards said they were completely lost. However, he was able to show real scientific data to support his claims about global warming. He also claimed that this warming was all due to man’s efforts. His message was pretty clear – we’re screwing up the environment and if we don’t change our ways dire things will happen.

Lindzen argued that global warming doesn’t exist and man’s activities are having no discernable effect on the environment. His message was also clear – we can go along as we’ve been going without fear. He gave what appeared to be very persuasive arguments and I could see many people in the audience nodding their heads when he would make some point. However, he provided no scientific data to back up his claims and he stated many things that I know to be untrue. One example of this was that glaciers have been growing since the 70s. Another is that the ocean has been cooling since the 50s. An overwhelming amount of data shows that both of these claims are in error. Al Gore’s movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ was the basis for much of his argument. He went through many points in the movie and showed how they were wrong. In this regard, he was right. Much of what is said in that movie is wrong.

Before I go on, let me state that I firmly believe that global warming is occurring and man’s activities have contributed to this. I have been following this story for about 25 years now and was an advocate of it even when the majority of the scientific community was skeptical. I say this because I want to say ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was a piece of junk. What is inconvenient about it is there is little truth in what Gore was saying. He does a pretty good job, for a non-expert. The problem is that he is portraying himself as an expert. Therefore, every time he makes a mistake, and there are numerous mistakes, he is giving ammo to the opposition. I made this claim a year ago when it first came out. Now, I’ve seen it in action.

It is my opinion, and I believe it to be an informed opinion, that both of these scientists are in error. Trenberth, at least, was right about global warming. Yes, global warming exists and is a problem. The environment is changing all around us and we must adapt or we will suffer accordingly. However, we are not solely responsible for it. The environment is warming naturally. Environments go through warming and cooling stages, and there is every reason to believe that we are going through a warming period right now. However, man’s activities have certainly been a significant factor in this warming. How much is ‘significant’? I don’t know. We may be responsible for 80% of it, or we may be responsible for 20%. Either way, we are making a major contribution to our own problems and we need to adjust our behavior.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do. We can quit burning coal and natural gas for power and switch to nuclear energy. There is no rational reason why we can’t double the number of nuclear power plants in this country. The issue of nuclear waste is a non-issue, one that I’ll write about in a future posting.

But, even if we did double the number of nuclear power plants, it wouldn’t solve the problem. We are not going to go without automobiles. We are not going to quit raising live stock. We are not going to quit putting fertilizer on farm fields. We are not going to quit making cement. And, these are just a few of the sources of greenhouse gases.

We can’t stop it, but maybe we can lessen the effects a little. It won’t be easy, but it’s something we must do. The cost is too high if we don’t.