bottom-line

Here is the bottom-line on climate change: It's not up to a vote.

It won't matter if Fox news puts out every questionable study and ignores the ones it doesn't like which say change is coming. It won't matter if your senator ridicules it. It won't matter if you don't like it. It is happening or it is not.

Thomas Friedman put out a good take with some suggestions [Global Weirding]. It won't convince naysayers, who are trying to make this one more political issue to nail Obama or who don't want to reduce carbon usage; but if you are not a naysayer, there are reasons to give the whole issue some serious consideration.

The leadership in our country has become so fractionalized that it cannot function on any level unless Republican legislators run things. If they run things, they will do what benefits themselves, big corporations, and convince anybody they can (maybe even themselves) that it's the noblest, most patriotic choice and half the country will cheer. It won't change global climate no matter how much hot air they put out.

If Republican Congress people can't run things, they pout and demand nothing be done even about something as serious as the question of global climate change. They will try to obfuscate and distract from very real questions like about ocean temperatures rising and what that means to the ocean streams and currents. Keep in mind that weather is very related to the ocean moving air around. When that is disrupted or changed, what will that mean for humans? If you don't know, shouldn't you research it?

I guess Republican leaders think they won't be here to see the consequences if they are wrong. Wouldn't you think they'd at least want to know for future generations (assuming the shift takes awhile) but they apparently don't. They smell blood on the water and like typical sharks they only worry about their next meal. They will deny anything science might say to interfere, and they will block unbiased funding that could find out.

If you have watched the film, Day After Tomorrow, you know one of the main theories of global climate change-- necessarily dramatized and rushed for film purposes-- is weather extremes, brought on by ocean temperature changes, which could include mini-ice ages... which won't seem like mini-anything if you happen to live where they happen.

Right-left, up-down, it is ALL theories right now. Science can look at the past, speculate on the future based on geologic evidence or history (like other times of rising CO2 levels, but there isn't really anything like what we have going today to look at. Even if there was, they cannot be sure how it would impact the future or even today. They can make educated guesses.

Another bottom-line: earth is a dynamic planet with the potential for huge shifts that, based on geologic evidence, can come very fast. If you don't understand that, try watching How the Earth was Made. Mankind lives on this planet with many other creatures, many others only fossilized evidence they ever existed because of other catastrophic shifts. We don't control it. Some might try to tell you we do, but we do not. That doesn't mean we can't impact it.

For those who believe in a god who tweaks things every now and again to get the bad guys or reward the good, they don't care about science and what it can tell them. They believe their god will either fix it or destroy it sometimes based on whims. They are jake with that.

For those who believe in a god but don't believe he/she/it will fix anything, for those who don't believe in a god, there is reason to do research on what is happening and try to stay away from studies like the one done by [Peabody Energy Corp's] (think coal). Some university results will be as suspect depending on who is paying for that particular study. What we need is more science that is not funded by some financial interest. There is very little of that out there at least in our country.

What we can do is look for hard statistics regarding say the time on earth when so many people either disappeared or had to migrate elsewhere [like the Anasazi] and follow up with a variety of opinions on what those statistics could mean for today:

[How Warm was the Medieval Warm Period?]
[Global Warming in Europe and Russia]
[Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?]
[Warming or not?]
[Ominous warnings of ocean acidification]

The question of whether mankind is impacting climate should be off the table as of course human activity is a factor considering the numbers we are talking about around the world-- numbers that are growing on an exponentially increasing pattern (short some major plague or a continental level natural disaster). The question is how much of this is human impacted and what can we really do about it. If the seas warm, have less temperature differential in their depths, or turn less salty, what does that mean for food sources and climate on land?

Yes, it might be that whatever is coming would come anyway. Might be something outside our control will send it all another way like a super volcano (we won't like that either). Can humans change it at this point? Well we can't impact something like solar activity which is a factor in air temperature on earth. So why care?

I think we should care in order to prepare ourselves for possible change (wise anyway), to do our part in living responsibly (wise anyway). That might involve moving. It might involve having a rotating supply of food that can be used if emergencies (like winters that don't end) should happen. If I lived year round in a location that might end up below sea level (which isn't as high as some would suggest), I'd give serious consideration to moving inland a bit, but then I'd have that option. Not everyone does.

Generally, I tend to say avoid blogs for hard science (including mine) but [Skeptical Science] seemed good to me with its facts and analysis as well as dissenting comments. Here are a couple of good examples:

[Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming] or
[Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?]

It is to your advantage to know what's coming, and if you base your conclusions on politics, not liking Al Gore, or thinking carbon credits make no sense (it didn't to me either), you won't get the most accurate information. It takes work, and media won't do it for you. My thinking is be prepared as best you can for you individually. This isn't something to fret over but to research, then do what is possible and responsible.