EXTREME WISDOM blog headline: Is Climatology a Science?
Disconcertingly, conservative blogger and talk show host Bruno Behrend denies the scientificalitiness of a field of science. Your Illinois Reason blogger wonders if Behrend realizes Intelligent Design excuse-making is not a science, but Climatology is.
Strangely, Behrend doesn’t even seem to understand that the science of predicting the weather next week is called “Meteorology” (your Illinois Reason blogger wonders if the “meteor-” part throws Behrend off) and that the study of the weather patterns over time is called “Climatology”.
Dictionary.com explains “climate” is “the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years.”
Your Illinois Reason blogger wonders why anyone would expect the study of weather averages to predict weather on a specific day instead of predicting weather patterns in general. Nes thinks this is because Behrend does not know what he is talking about — though Nes points out that denying reality helps promote Behrend’s agenda on this matter.
Discouragingly, denying reality through use of red herrings such as ignorance of words like “climatology” also leads to dismissal of other issues related to our shared atmosphere such as the increasing rates of asthma among children worldwide, which is ultimately likely a result of air pollution (dumping “garbage” into the air).
Nes points out that no matter what the cause of catastrophic global climate change, reducing pollution will also have positive effects on health (by reducing harmful material dumped into our air and decreasing rates of acid rain and the like) and the economy (by spurring competition and diversification in energy-production industries).
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April 19, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Bruno
Rob,
As some one who “doesn’t know what I’m talking about,” I’d be glad to meet you any evening or weekend for a debate on global warming, which was the main point of my post.
This is more than the bonehead Gore will do, given that he refuses to appear in any medium where there is some one who will challenge him on his absurd notion that my Pathfinder is a threat to civilization.
Seriously, I love these nitpicky hit pieces you put out, but put your time and money where your sarcastic mouth is. Let’s debate.
In 5-10 years, the “man caused global warming” scam will be old news, and the international conspiracy to keep the poor underdeveloped will have to move on to some other nonsensical idea.
You want a higher gas tax to cut consumption? I’m for it (in exchange for tax cuts else where). You want a carbon tax to reduce pollution? Let’s rock, as long as we rationalize ridiculous tax policies elsewhere.
I’m open to ideas.
OTOH, it wouldn’t matter if 20,000 paid for psuedo-scientists signed onto to some pointless UN political document. I know the science. I passed all my classes. The idea that our activity is warming the globe was just as silly when I first heard it as it is now.
Gore? Hollywood Oscars? Yeah, that’s persuasive.
April 20, 2007 at 2:09 pm
robnesvacil
No, your single Pathfinder isn’t going to do squat. But yours isn’t the only gas-powered auto in the world, is it? What a dumb thing to say, Bruno. You know as well as I do that it’s the cumulative effect of not just all the carbon-based vehicles on the planet, but also all the carbon-based small machines (lawnmowers, etc) plus all the factories and electricity-generation plants (industrial pollution is by far the main contributor).
It’s everything altogether which is why if we all pull back just a little it can have a big, cumulative effect in the reverse direction. And if we pull back a lot (converting to sustainable systems that are not pollution-based) it will have an even greater effect.
There’s plenty of other evidence that man-made pollution is at the very least contributing, if not the major cause, of global climate change. BTW, global “warming” is a misnomer. Some areas of the globe may actually cool down a bit (Europe for instance, as the Gulf Stream either alters course or stops glowing altogether. England and France are as far north as Maine, yet their climate is much more mild relatively speaking — without the Gulf Stream that won’t hold true much longer.)
That’s the point. Pollution is at least contributing to it. You don’t need to bring your strawman Gore into it. Plenty of other evidence that you’re ignoring.
For instance, you can ignore that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that mankind (all of us) have been dumping it with the rest of our airborne garbage into the atmosphere scot-free for a century and a half. But ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.
We pay to send our trash to a dump. We pay to flush our waste down a toilet. We’re starting to pay in other ways for pumping our pollution into the air.
Besides, as I stated in the post, even if it has absolutely zero affect on climate change — as you opine — reducing pollution will still benefit people’s health as air gets cleaner, improve the economy as competition and new industries open up, and, gee, it’ll even bolster national defense as we reduce our reliance on terrorist-funding oil. It’s bizarre how adamant partisans are that we do nothing to reduce pollution. Y’all are fixating on a single issue when it actually crosses into so many other areas.
(Sidenote 1: You may interested to know Sen. Dodd is discussing a carbon-tax idea on the presidential campaign trail.)
(Sidenote 2: I find it not the least bit two-faced that you dismiss “20,000″ scientists as “pseudo” and “paid for” but base much of your arguments on the handful of quacks that Exxon paid to say “Global warming is not caused by man.” Besides, that UN report was actually watered-down by the politicians who, like you, didn’t like the facts either. That means the scientists the UN recruited were trying to actually tell us it’s more dire than the even the UN wants to admit.)