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I started this blog because of the shortage of intelligent analysis of and commentary in the main stream media ("MSM") on critical political, cultural, and environmental issues facing us today. To be sure, there is no shortage of commentary on these issues in the MSM. But an appalling amount of this commentary displays little or no thought or analysis. I do not expect this blog to change the world--the internet already has innumerable incisive blogs, but, hopefully, it will improve the quality of the debate about important issues facing us.








The first issue to discuss is referred to variously as global warming or climate change. Important questions regarding this issue are not being asked,at least in the MSM, and, therefore, are not being properly considered. This and some of the following posts may be longer than traditionally found on blogs. That is because they will attempt a fairly in-depth discussion of the issues that need to be considered.

Is the Earth getting warmer?

I assume it is, because it has been getting warmer literally for thousands of years. I have no reason to believe that this very long-term trend has stopped.

What has caused this long-term warming trend? Theories abound, but no one really knows. The important point, however, is that no one claims that man's activities contributed to this warming trend until the second half of the last century. So the important question is not whether the planet is warming, but rather whether man's activities are now contributing to or accelerating this pre-existing but naturally-occurring warming trend.

Are human activities causing the Earth to warm?

Many scientists -- but by no means all -- contend that our activities are contributing to global warming. Simply put, the theory is that "greenhouse gases," primarily CO2, emitted by burning fossil fuels, either trap heat or create heat in the Earth's atmosphere.

This theory is certainly plausible. But there are scant historical data to support it. To be fair, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate that human activity over the last 60 years has altered a trend that has been in place for 10,000 plus years. Some scientists contend that the measurable effects of these activities will only be felt in the future after these greenhouse gases have built up to higher levels. Nevertheless, I would contend that there are little or no historical data to support the theory of man-made global warming.

Not that proponents of man-made global warming haven't striven mightily to find support in the historical data. Scientists have attempted to measure the Earth's temperature over the past thousands of years. These efforts are not very exact -- one can only do so much with tree rings and ice and sediment cores. The initial study showed that the Earth's temperature varied significantly, both warming and cooling, without input from humans.

Proponents of man-made global warming then reanalyzed the data and claimed to have found the "hockey stick" pattern, demonstrating that the Earth's temperature started rising significantly in the second half of the 20th century. Subsequent reviews of this analysis, however, have apparently discredited this purported hockey stick pattern. So we are back to a pattern of data that show significant changes in the Earth's temperature that no one contends were caused or influenced by human activity.

But let's assume that human activity is increasing the rate of global warming. We then must ask:

How much is human activity adding to the long-term secular warming trend?

The estimates of the actual effect of human activity on the Earth's temperature are all over the lot and have quite large margins of error. Consequently, it is nearly-impossible to determine the size of the problem, or if it even creates a meaningful problem.

Why then does Al Gore and some reputable scientists shrilly warn that we are facing a crisis of near-apocalyptic proportions? Because they want us to change the way we live; they want us to reduce our use of fossil fuels and generate energy from renewable sources, e.g. wind and solar. This post will not discuss the feasibility of doing this. Rather, it will discuss that Magic talisman of the left, the Kyoto treaty.

Assuming that man-made global warming presents a real problem, does the Kyoto treaty provide a real solution?

The short answer is no. The treaty does not affect the major developing countries, most significantly India and China. Those countries are significantly increasing their use of fossil fuels as their economies expand and the standard of living of their people improves. To give just one example, China is currently opening a new coal-burning electrical-generating plant on the average of one every seven days (I saw one article saying they are opening a new electrical plant at the rate of one per day, but I distrust this number). In addition, as people become more affluent, they are trading in their bicycles for automobiles, which of course run on fossil fuels.

This is the reason that the United States Senate passed a resolution by a vote of 95-0 stating that it would refuse to ratify the Kyoto treaty if it were submitted to it in its current form. Obviously, the chances of the Kyoto treaty obtaining the two-thirds vote in the Senate necessary to ratify it are remote. Even Senator John McCain, who has become a recent convert to the doctrine of man-made global warming has stated that he would not support any scheme to reduce "greenhouse" emissions that did not include China and India.

CONCLUSION

Man-made global warming may be real, it may be serious, though neither proposition has been established. Even if these propositions are true, however, the Kyoto treaty clearly is not the solution. I don't have a solution ( I'm still not convinced there's a problem to solve). But until we start analyzing and discussing these issues realistically, nothing truly useful is going to occur.