Fight Global Warming? Or Cooling? Or Stop Fighting Climate Change?
Apparently the globe has stopped warming (if it was actually warming) and has started cooling (if there actually is a cooling trend.) But we are still rushing ahead with drastic, often harmful, measures to stop global warming..
Shouldn't we be stopping what we are doing to cool the earth? Should we start trying to warm the earth instead? Or should we stop everything about warming or cooling until we see what, if anything, we should be doing?
In fact, is trying to fight "climate change," whether warming or cooling, something we should be doing at all? Is it even within our capacity to stop the climate from changing? And if it is within our power, should we even be trying? And shouldn't we answer such questions before we try to do anything further about the climate?
We can't just keep going as we are, anyhow. It is already too costly, and too harmful. A glaring example is using cropland for biofuels instead of food, which is contributing to soaring world hunger and soaring food prices. Another example is blockiing more production of oil, which has caused soaring oil prices and could greatly harm our prosperity.
Fighting global warming and fighting oil production are causing world-wide problems, even for the prosperous. But it is the poor of the world who are suffering most.
Still, if we stop fighting global warming, won't pollution get worse? No. The things that might contribute to warming are not the things that cause pollution.
Warming gases and polluting gases are not the same, but opposite to each other. The warming gases - water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide - do not pollute. They are clean, clear, non-toxic gases. They do not cause air pollution. They do not kill anyone, or even make them ill. In fact they are necessary if there is to be life on earth at all.
Water vapor is 95% of total warming gases. Nothing can be done about water vapor. So "Warmists" focus mostly on carbon dioxide instead. But CO2 is only around 5% of all warming gases. Almost all of that 5% comes from the oceans anyhow. Human-caused carbon dioxide is a only tiny fraction of about 3% of that 5%! That is not enough to warm the climate significantly, or even measure accurately. That tiny percentage of CO2, plus the tiny percent of mathane that is human-caused, are the only warming gases we could do anything about anyhow.
Polluting gases, on the other hand, COOL the earth. They consist of particles in the air. Particles in the air reflect sunlight away from the earth, which cools it. An glaring example is the great volcanic erruptions of the past. They threw great clouds of particles into the air, which had a cooling effect on the climate for 2 or 3 years. Pollution has a cooling effect.
If the global Warmists were more serious, they would have promoted more air pollution. They would have been crying "Drill for oil! Refine more oil! Burn more coal! Increase smog!" All these things would produce more air pollution, which would help COOL the earth.
Wouldn't any impartial observer think we are insane?
So where do we start to re-think about climage change, and about pollution? We already know that pollution is bad for human, animal and vegetable life. So is fighting pollution a good thing? The answer would seem to be yes, but only if we do it in well-considered ways that do not harm us more than they help us.
Finally, should we try to stop climate change in order to avoid bad storms? Scientists differ as to whether there are more storms in cool or warm periods. But they agree that strong, vast movements of air are necessary to keep the earth's climate mild enough for life to exist at all. So there will be storms, regardless of whether the climate is cooling or warming. Humans have always had to deal with them, and we are no exception.
All we know for sure about handling natural disasters well is that the more prosperous nations are, the better they handls them. There is less loss of life and property, better response to disaster, and more rapid rebuilding afterwards, when a nation is more prosperous. So for human safety and well-being, we need to promote those things that make nations more prosperous. That puts capitalism, the acknowledged best path to national prosperity, in a whole new and more kindly light.
What then should we do about climate change? Apparently, we could not change the climate if we tried. The climate has changed from warm to cool and back again so long as the earth has existed. It will not stop, no matter what we do. Human efforts have always been to try to adjust to whatever climate changes came. That seems like a pretty sound plan. Not so exciting, true. But less harmful.
Shouldn't we be stopping what we are doing to cool the earth? Should we start trying to warm the earth instead? Or should we stop everything about warming or cooling until we see what, if anything, we should be doing?
In fact, is trying to fight "climate change," whether warming or cooling, something we should be doing at all? Is it even within our capacity to stop the climate from changing? And if it is within our power, should we even be trying? And shouldn't we answer such questions before we try to do anything further about the climate?
We can't just keep going as we are, anyhow. It is already too costly, and too harmful. A glaring example is using cropland for biofuels instead of food, which is contributing to soaring world hunger and soaring food prices. Another example is blockiing more production of oil, which has caused soaring oil prices and could greatly harm our prosperity.
Fighting global warming and fighting oil production are causing world-wide problems, even for the prosperous. But it is the poor of the world who are suffering most.
Still, if we stop fighting global warming, won't pollution get worse? No. The things that might contribute to warming are not the things that cause pollution.
Warming gases and polluting gases are not the same, but opposite to each other. The warming gases - water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide - do not pollute. They are clean, clear, non-toxic gases. They do not cause air pollution. They do not kill anyone, or even make them ill. In fact they are necessary if there is to be life on earth at all.
Water vapor is 95% of total warming gases. Nothing can be done about water vapor. So "Warmists" focus mostly on carbon dioxide instead. But CO2 is only around 5% of all warming gases. Almost all of that 5% comes from the oceans anyhow. Human-caused carbon dioxide is a only tiny fraction of about 3% of that 5%! That is not enough to warm the climate significantly, or even measure accurately. That tiny percentage of CO2, plus the tiny percent of mathane that is human-caused, are the only warming gases we could do anything about anyhow.
Polluting gases, on the other hand, COOL the earth. They consist of particles in the air. Particles in the air reflect sunlight away from the earth, which cools it. An glaring example is the great volcanic erruptions of the past. They threw great clouds of particles into the air, which had a cooling effect on the climate for 2 or 3 years. Pollution has a cooling effect.
If the global Warmists were more serious, they would have promoted more air pollution. They would have been crying "Drill for oil! Refine more oil! Burn more coal! Increase smog!" All these things would produce more air pollution, which would help COOL the earth.
Wouldn't any impartial observer think we are insane?
So where do we start to re-think about climage change, and about pollution? We already know that pollution is bad for human, animal and vegetable life. So is fighting pollution a good thing? The answer would seem to be yes, but only if we do it in well-considered ways that do not harm us more than they help us.
Finally, should we try to stop climate change in order to avoid bad storms? Scientists differ as to whether there are more storms in cool or warm periods. But they agree that strong, vast movements of air are necessary to keep the earth's climate mild enough for life to exist at all. So there will be storms, regardless of whether the climate is cooling or warming. Humans have always had to deal with them, and we are no exception.
All we know for sure about handling natural disasters well is that the more prosperous nations are, the better they handls them. There is less loss of life and property, better response to disaster, and more rapid rebuilding afterwards, when a nation is more prosperous. So for human safety and well-being, we need to promote those things that make nations more prosperous. That puts capitalism, the acknowledged best path to national prosperity, in a whole new and more kindly light.
What then should we do about climate change? Apparently, we could not change the climate if we tried. The climate has changed from warm to cool and back again so long as the earth has existed. It will not stop, no matter what we do. Human efforts have always been to try to adjust to whatever climate changes came. That seems like a pretty sound plan. Not so exciting, true. But less harmful.
posted by Old Neocon at 1:05 PM
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