Climate change

I'm not a scientist whose field is climate or anything related. This
is pure opinion. Frustrated opinion on a frustrating topic.

When this first started hitting mainstream media and my attention I
was a climate change sceptic. Not a ravening, sending out chain mail
sceptic but a sceptic nonetheless. I remember watching the
inconvenient truth at the cinemas and one thing that I took away from
it was according to the trends from the drilled ice that tracks global
climate over thousands of years, we were in for a climate change,
warming in this instance, anyway. Perhaps not to the same degree, but
I felt a little miffed by Al Gore conveniently fudging over that fact.

On the other hand, I'm all for reducing pollution and waste. So my
thoughts went vaguely along the lines of: bemusement at the ferocity
of the debate, leaning towards it not really being man-made (prior to
watching an insight on it and a few other documentaries I admit my
skepticism included that the globe was warming at all). But heck,
whatever reduced pollution was ok by me. This was also slightly led by
my school days frustration with economics not including any human or
environmental factors in it's drive for finding the intersection of
demand and supply.

Pollution and waste for me is something that was part of my
upbringing. If you left the room, you turned your light off. You
didn't run the tap when brushing your teeth. I'm also a stickler for
efficiency. If I'm going shopping, I plan the quickest and most
effective way of getting what I need. And if im going out, i may as
well try to fit in as much as possible. At work, my job is basically
to make it easier and better for my users to do their jobs. The older
I get, the more I realise a lot of what I do is driven by efficiency
and a lot of frustration or irritation i get is when things aren't
efficient, perceived or otherwise.

And let's face it, pollution isn't good. I don't like smog. I don't
like smelling petrol fumes. Heck I don't like smelling your cigarette.
I don't like that we don't look after ourselves and the environment
better. And this isn't from some tree hugging philosophy, this is
grounded in Christianity. We are the caretakers of the world. We
shouldn't needlessly waste or hurt our environment and animals. That
doesn't mean I'm a vegetarian however. I still value human life over a
cow. But I expect that human life to be a decent caretaker.

So... Back to climate change. I thought if it could reduce pollution
and use more efficient sources of energy, why not?

Of course no one wants to spend more. I believe this is the crux of
the matter for most people. Most people don't really care about the
science. Most people don't care about truths. Most people, read all,
will for a lot of topics, find evidence or opinion that will support
what they do or do not want to do. And let's face it, money is
important. Money is something that people get fired up about because
it's perceived value is so high and not having money sucks.. I include
myself here.

But I quickly got tired of the representation of the topic in the
media. I got tired of the climate change sceptic bashing and the
scientist bashing. Some scientists have had their lives threatened!!!
More recently, a journalist wrote that Julia Gillard should be killed
so she can't implement this tax. It is happening on both sides as
well. Now doesn't that sort of talking make you pause, take a step
back, reassess? In the back of my head I was also trying to sort out
what the agenda for these scientists or corporations or governments
who were pushing global warming. Cynic that I am, I couldn't really
wrap my head around what thus nameless driving force was really hoping
to achieve? Reducing carbon dioxide pollution? Making money? One world
order? For what purpose? What gain?

So as the media was ramping up, I was leaning more and more in the
opposite direction. I was thinking of myself as more agnostic since
sceptic had been hijacked by the ravening masses who unfortunately
werent so much skeptics as deniers. In think that was a shame because
it's given skeptics a bad name. So I was agnostic. I didn't feel I had
any real knowledge in the field and was too lazy to really start
looking into it at any depth, and really, where would you start
anyway? So it's an ignorance born out of laziness and a little apathy
with the glimmer that it could all be true, that we are all horrible
people and we are about to die. In flames.

Ah the media. In my mind a more complex problem than proving global
warming. There are so many gripes I have with the media, I don't know
where to start. Fair, balanced stories? So many articles put two sides
to every story. I understand this, but they represent the two sides as
equally important or equally true, which isn't often the case. More
likely they are both opinions, but sometimes one of the people or
groups opinion is founded in a little more fact or truth than the
other. But they get the same 'air time'. For instance a report talking
about how helpful dogs are in society could have an expert in the
historical impact and benefit that dogs have made to humanity and then
there could be me, who doesn't like dogs and who would rather have
them all behind fences and on leashes and please don't come up and
lick or jump or bark near me. Now my opinion is certainly valid and
representative. But this wasn't about opinion. This was about the
contribution made by dogs as a species to humans as a species and
there is historical and perhaps scientific evidence to support that
dogs overall have been a good thing. Both sides given the same weight
in the report, but one has a bit more authority on the topic.

Of course, there are scientists who claim they don't believe global
warming is man made. I'm interested in these people. I may just look
them up and read them one of these days. I suppose this reflects my
current opinion on the topic. But every chain mail emails I get going
on about some volcano spewing more carbon dioxide than humanity in
total, drives me more and more into the "believer" category. I suppose
by that theory you should just start sending me lots of pro human
global change propaganda and I might change my mind again! And then I
will get over it and move on to some other more interesting topic.

But the fact still remains, if global warming is contributed to by
man and we are screwing the planet over, that's kinda really bad. Like
catastrophically bad. Can I take the risk that I'm wrong and therefore
my great great geat and a few more great grand kids are going to live
some sort of 70s science fiction life where humanity is scrabbling
over the last bits of resources, fresh water, etc? Is that
justification enough for a new tax? A cleaner planet? I mean we are
all going to die anyway. The planet will eventually be a dead star and
not support life anyway. Is that justification enough to not do
anything? It smacks of "he's going to do drugs anyway, we may as well
introduce him to them at home". Or "she's gonna die anyway, may as
well allow her to ruin her health now". An interesting conundrum. Do
you, don't you?

What is wrong with wanting to use cleaner and more renewable energy
anyway? I'm a firm believer that humans are great innovators. We can
do anything, why not turn our creative energies towards being more
efficient, less wasteful?

Now whether the Carbon tax or ETS or whatever will achieve this is a
separate debate, and should be separated from the initial hypothesis
of man made global warming. The media confuses the two. The media
doesn't really represent anything meaningful. The media is hype. And
yet how are you supposed to be informed without the media? I just
really wish for a media organization that I can respect. That I can
trust. I suppose I wish that from a government, large grocery chains
and so much more. With an increasing ability to get information out,
why are we getting less information and more opinion? Why is it
becoming less reliable and less meaningful? Is it because we need it
all now now NOW? Why Is it more important that it's fast than that
it's accurate?

Now I've gone off topic!

Just to link some articles that I've found interesting or I've
bothered to read through frustration:
http://heathenscripture.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/you-shut-your-goddamn-carbon-taxin-mouth.
This is not for those who offend easily. His language is colorful but
the ideas are refreshing and honestly nice to have someone as
frustrated as I putting it down with a no holds barred way!

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php. Because every few
days it seems some well meaning relation is sending me emails
regarding how such and such a volcanic eruption just put more carbon
dioxide than humanity. The answer is NO and please stop sending these
emails, they make me lean more towards the 'let's replace all coal
fired stations with nuclear'. Actually I probably don't need global
warming for that. Oh and please don't start going on about the
unfortunate recent Japanese disaster with nuclear. NO!

I might post more links later. There is one my husband sent to me that
tried to look at all the actual authoritative scientific published
evidence both for and against but I can't remember it at the moment. I
have a cold that is impacting on me more urgently than global warming
at the moment.

Who knows, tomorrow I might just post my rant about health and diets!
You have been warned!