Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Lying about Climate Change

There were recent emails stolen from servers which indicate that many climate researchers from several UK and US universities and research institutions were attempting to cover up any evidence that the world's temperatures were not "rising" in step with the predicted global warming that has been so controversial lately.

I am not a climatologist although I understand the scientific method perfectly well. I could never claim one way or another anything about climate change with any authority, yet I do understand sensors, computers, statistics and so forth, as it applies to just about any subject in science and engineering. It is a lowly thing to do to "fix" the data to meet predetermined expectations. That is little better than calling dinosaurs bones "a joke played by God" in order to disprove evolution theory.

I think there are enough other problems with the world's environment, however, and since the very people who are so quick to cry hoax over these problems with climate change science are also many times the very people who generate vast profits from the unfettered pollution of the planet by their industries.

However, there are other problems with climate science -- on both sides of the aisle. There are not sensors in every conceivable location in the oceans and atmosphere, nor could there ever be, so the actual "temperature" of the Earth is pretty much guess work. There are some places that heat up and some places that cool down.

All in all the average temperature doesn't change very much, although it is certainly different now than for many of the last few centuries. This slow, agonizingly gradual change in the climate gives either side plenty of elbow room when trying to force their view of the situation upon a confused public.

But the measurements of chemicals such as chlorine compounds -- many of them highly catalytic and problematic for nearly all lifeforms -- are undeniably higher almost everywhere you measure than even just a few decades ago. There are so many man-made chemicals poured into the environment that no scientific means can be used to predict what they will do -- only time will tell. From what studies there have been, the results are not happy. From fish eggs to cow bones and squid swarms, the world is changing.

It could be that all of those chemicals become broken down by various newly evolved bacteria or other dynamic lifeforms. It could also be that those chemicals kill off more lifeforms than can evolve and adapt to them. There is little doubt that they have an effect, and usually a very negative effect upon our world.

The radioactive substances alone are profoundly dangerous and some countries have terrible proliferation controls. It is bad enough just here in the USA where we are paranoid about that kind of stuff. In some countries the ignorant masses are exposed to any number of radioactive substances by merely rummaging through trash or in war-torn places from the left-over depleted uranium dust our anti-tank weapons leave behind.

The catalytic compounds are many and cover a lot of ground. The bromine and fluorine catalysts are less widespread than chlorine, but they have very similar effects wherever they accumulate. Chlorine breaks down our ozone layers and does not become consumed by the chemical reactions, so it is free to break down more ozone for decades before it diffuses back to harmless levels -- if it ever will be reduced in output. Chlorine is even a problem when confined as a salt, where it renders water electrolytic and corrosive.

Dioxins and heavy metals like lead, mercury and arsenic, minerals like asbestos and chemicals like formaldehyde are released as manufacturing companies produce them, or when they try to discard them but have nowhere to put them. These and many more chemicals effect living organisms in bad ways and often times we live and breathe them in our own homes continuously.

Climate Change, as a religion, never was the true bogey man some claimed it was, although I do not doubt that something is happening to the ice caps and glaciers. It could truly be a problem, no doubt, if the ocean levels are effected, if the tundra melts, if methane is released in massive quantities into our air. But the truth or falsity of that religion means very little if the obvious toxic wastes of human civilization are allowed to keep accumulating without regulation.

No one has proven that climate change is false. They have only proved that scientists can be dishonest, which is little different than businessmen or people in general. But that is exactly what the people who make the vast quantities of wealth from pollution-producing industries want us to believe -- that climate change is false, so we should therefore do nothing about any pollution. That is called "The Straw Man" distraction, and mostly fools will fall for it.

But there are plenty of fools, and many dishonest people to take advantage of them.