Um, er, um — maybe it’s not all global warming’s fault
Boy, the discoveries just keep piling up, don’t they, all indicating that Al Bore may have been over-interpreting the scientific data, just a little bit:
Global warming may not be the only thing melting Greenland. Scientists have found at least one natural magma hotspot under the Arctic island that could be pitching in.
In recent years, Greenland’s ice has been melting more and flowing faster into the sea—a record amount of ice melted from the frozen mass this summer, according to recently released data—and Earth’s rising temperatures are suspected to be the main culprit.
But clues to a new natural contribution to the melt arose when scientists discovered a thin spot in the Earth’s crust under the northeast corner of the Greenland Ice Sheet where heat from Earth’s insides could seep through, scientists will report here this week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
“The behavior of the great ice sheets is an important barometer of global climate change,” said lead scientist Ralph von Frese of Ohio State University. “However, to effectively separate and quantify human impacts on climate change, we must understand the natural impacts too.”
On a summer’s day, those polar bears may still get stuck, but maybe it’s not all our fault.
I’m a big fan of the Occam’s razor principle, which I learned (simplistically, of course) to mean that the most simple or, at least, the most straightforward solution is usually the best one. However, it is becoming apparent that, at least with Climate Change, the most simple answer — it’s all people’s; no, make that the West’s; no, make that America’s fault — is not an intelligently applied version of Occam’s razor, but is instead a foolish rush to judgment. Of course, in a rational world, where the climate has changed violently and repeatedly since Earth’s inception, an intelligent application of Occam’s razor might say that, as the causes before resulted from natural phenomena, so too they result from natural phenomena, at least in significant part, today.
And let me add my usual disclaimer for a climate change post: I would still love to see us get off fossil fuels, since doing so would de-fund large parts of the world that are most hostile to us (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, etc.), but that doesn’t make me less opposed to the hysteria about global warming. If the hysteria would take more practical turns, such as developing nuclear energy or using public schools to teach kids to turn out lights when they leave the room, I might be more interested in the whole thing. As it is, the misanthropy, the anti-Americanism, and the rank profiteering that characterizes climate change activism to me is a complete turn off, it’s not being used intelligently to deal with real problems and force real solutions, and I therefore resist it steadfastly.
UPDATE: Global warming temporarily canceled in Britain.
UPDATE II: And of course, all my thoughts are with those in the Midwest currently victimized by not-Global Warming.
