March 13, 2011

Slice of PIE: “Global Warming” Yet Again…


Some time ago (see below), I expressed my belief that several micro people groups had grabbed hold of a belief that Humanity had had such a powerful impact on the climate of the planet, that we were bent on planetary suicide in a few decades.

My concern was NOT that the idea of climate change was wrong. I firmly believe climate change happens. I firmly believe that as inhabitants of Earth our actions have an impact on the planet’s biosphere.

What I found dangerous is that some of those micro people groups (mpgs) were assigning God’s powers to Humanity. Many people in those mpgs had long-ago ditched God. I believe some of those had trouble with being cast adrift on a sea of chance. A few of that group needed to raise Humanity up on a pedestal, assign it God powers so that their lives might have more meaning and their actions would have a profound impact on Earth. For them, Anthropogenic Global Warming took the place of God acting on Earth. For them, global climate changes were caused by Humans. In particular, these changes were caused by the technology of the industrialized nations – in other words, “science did it!”

The rallying cry of those mpgs was that “what science did, science can undo”. The only ones who can do science, of course are those in the industrialized nations – most notably, the G7 nations and the scientists who live there, work there and publish their papers there.

The heyday of the broad scientific acceptance of the AGW philosophy are over. For some this has meant that they recognize that AGW is not so much “A”, but simply part of a larger, longer cycle of climate change – what might be called Cyclical Global Climate Change or CGCC.

And yet, some members of the speculative fiction community continue to write books that include a Humanity deeply harmed (I refuse to say “deeply impacted”!) by AGW. I’d rather not point fingers, but several “big names” make sure that the backdrop of their story is a world that is post-AGW. As a scare tactic, it works. But as science, there are more than a few reputable scientists who now question the conclusions of the flagship of the AGW mpgs, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC for short).

While I don’t suggest now – nor have I ever suggested – we all go out and start REALLY abusing the planet and our environment because what we do doesn't matter, it appears that the "Anthro" part of global climate change may have been exaggerated. Below you’ll find a couple of links to sites I visit on a regular basis when I need to get a balanced viewpoint on the AGW bias of the micro people group whose cries have grown more vocal in some media outlets.

The upshot of this is that my own future histories probably won’t depend on an AGW plot point…which, according to some people in the industry may mean I will NEVER see publication!

*sigh*

My Thinking on AGW:

http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2009/08/possibly-irritating-essays-global.html

http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2008/09/possibly-irritating-essay-scientific.html

http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2008/09/pie-myth-busted.html

Other People’s Thinking on AGW:

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/

http://m-francis.livejournal.com/

http://jeffkooistra.blogspot.com/ (hardly ever updates, but the Global Climate widget is cool and Jeff has A LOT of good thoughts!)

image:http://www.arecentstudy.com/images/global-warming.jpg (there are some REALLY nasty opinion cartoons I might have posted here instead of this image...

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