I have about had it with the Al Gore groupies calling me a moron for having a little healthy skepticism about the party line on global warming. Tell me that the average temperature has risen almost a degree in the last century. Okay, no problem. Tell me that levels of CO2 have risen since monitoring began. Fine. Now tell me that industry and the internal combustion engine have caused the rise in temperature, that it will continue until the earth is destroyed or we institute draconian countermeasures. Huh?
Now I am not an ecologist, geologist or astronomer, but I have had a fair amount of science, probably much more than the individuals calling me a moron. I would like for those individuals to do a couple of experiments. First, open a hot soda, then open a cold one. Observe the difference. Now, boil water and let the steam enter a hot inverted container. Cover the container and let it cool. The results should be that more CO2 is released from the hot soda, and water vapor condenses on the cooling container. Why is this important? Well, as 70% of the earth's surface is covered by water, what happens to the temperature of that water is really important. That is, as the oceans warm (along with the rest of the earth), there are more water vapor and CO2 released into the atmosphere. The process takes a long time. Some of the sources that I have read suggest that if one takes a detailed look at dissolved CO2 within ice cores, they find that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have actually lagged behind rises in temperature by up to several hundred years.
What does all that mean? Well, it suggests that someone has cause and effect mixed up - that rising CO2 levels may be the result of global warming, not the cause. What also makes the Gore argument suspect is that water vapor accounts for about 95% of "greenhouse gases" with CO2 less than 1%. How, exactly, is CO2 the big culprit? And would Al please explain what roles solar flares and cosmic radiation play? Or volcanic activity? Or a number of other natural occurences that doomsdayers conveniently discount in their tidy little theories? I may not be convinced that man's pollution is not to blame, at least in part, but Al and others certainly cannot prove that it is the primary cause. And after all, this (global warming) has happened at least a few times before, and we were not driving SUV's at the time.
So, to my tormentors I would say "A little more science and a lot less speculation and histrionics". Show me proof, not a theory supported by computer models (with variables provided by proponents of the theory). I may not be an earth scientist, but neither is Al Gore and neither, I would bet, are you.