I am sure that I have crossed my mind a few times by now in previous posts - but who's really paying attention, right? So, at the risk of doing that now or reversing my own thinking later...
The recent "carbon footprint" publicity has taken center stage in public life. Scientists, educators, newsies and politicians have presented a global front of man-made global warming. At the moment, it is all about carbon.
Why carbon? It has been learned that carbon, present in the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2), as well as other gasses, is linked to temperature increases in lower atmosphere. That part we "know" - they say.
But I think there is a lot that we don't know. I am open to consider anything - as long as it considers itself a truth.
Frankly, I heard Al Gore's debate with Dan Quayle, and I was completely mortified by his logic back then. Now, he has made a LOT of money in purporting an Armagedon-esque man-made global warming theory. I might respect a scientist with the proposition of truth and a "prove-me-wrong-if-you-can" attitude; but my suspicions are on overload when a public figure presents science in a theatrical manner and then shuts down any discussion thereafter. It just resembles the Inquisition or the old Pravda propoganda to me.
I have mentioned before that I am considering things - in spite of a bad presentation, perhaps there is truth in it somewhere, right? My Dad always told us, "There are always two sides to every story." He knows the value of getting all the information before you make a judgement.
It makes sense to me that carbon would increase with our use of fossil fuels. (Though the levels being thrown around seem pretty small in the grand scheme.) However, it also makes sense to me that all that carbon came from somewhere - and I don't think it was space aliens. (That I may never cross my mind about...)
As I read the Bible, I learn that God created the heavens and the earth, and six chapters later, destroyed every land animal and bird in a global flood. The only people and animals that survived were those that were on a boat.
Prior to that flood, the Bible says there was a firmament of water over the earth. That is to say, a vapor barrier that would have blocked a lot of solar radiation and would also have kept the entire planet at a relatively constant temperature. Part of the flood, the Bible says, was the breaking up of that firmament. So, notice first that there is likely the same amount of water before the flood and after, but it now takes the form of large oceans, clouds and lakes, instead of being a vapor barrier high in the atmosphere.
In much the same fashion, I contend that there was a lot more carbon in the system in the form of plants and animals, including dinosaurs. We still have all that carbon; but now we have it, not only in the forms of plants and animals, but also in the form of coal and petroleum deposits in the ground. This is not a disputed point - how it got there certainly is disputed.
What it is doing to the atmosphere certainly is disputed as well. In my mind, we are likely coming out of a 4,000 year ice age that followed the flood of Genesis. What that means is that the processes we are observing are both anecdotal (being too short to extrapolate reasonable conclusions) and irrelevant (because things now are not the same as they always have been).
Change is a scary thing. People naturally want to find a home, find a job, have a family and live happily ever after. Every day, peoples' jobs are lost, homes are lost, wars are started, cancer strikes and people are stressed.
Scientists are people too - analytical people. They want to make sense of things that they observe but they have to make assumptions about things they do not or cannot know. Because scientists are people, those assumptions are often based on the present conditions, and they do extrapolate from their observations without regard to the record of the Bible.
So with all the dinosaurs being burned up in our gasoline, all that carbon being put back into the system but having no firmament, what will that actually do to the Earth? Is carbon actually the biggest cause of global warming?
I heard some discussion of the global warming yesterday on my way home from work. Janet Parshall was interviewing Dr. Roy Spencer. Dr. Spencer is not a new name to me - Rush used to mention him all the time.
He contends that the carbon concetrations are a minimal part of the whole. I try to make things simple, so at the risk of being wrong, consider this: I mentioned the water both before and after the flood of Genesis? I then mentioned the carbon levels in comparison? Those are just two components of a large, complex system. One component's rise or fall is most often and obeservably offset by another's opposing reaction.
I understand that there are 21 climate models presently being studied. These models attempt to take into account all of the systems and cycles to generate a probable response to changes. Dr. Spencer contends that all 21 of these climate models assume that warmer temperatures cause by carbon produces more clouds, which in turn causes more heat (greenhouse effect). He questions that the clouds do, in fact generate more heat. I understand him to say that the effects of clouds is not understood. They could, in fact, actually have a cooling effect. I think that this might also be a part of the greenhouse effect - neither extreme, warmth or cold is reached. I cannot tell you who is right, but I am glad to learn that someone is legitimately trying to learn the truth.
I found his blog and I hope to read some of his writing sometime as well. He is not one to follow the mainstream blindly and is one in pursuit of truth. I think he and I would get along quite well - if I were smarter, that is.
For his explanation of man-made global warming:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-101/
