Saturday, June 13, 2009

DANG IT.

Okay, something is massively and infuriatingly wrong with Blogger.

I had a whole post written and published, and I went back to add something to it. When I published it again, ALL BUT THE FIRST SENTENCE HAD BEEN DELETED.

Yeah. I'm so mad I feel like crying. I don't even remember what I said! But it was pretty good! And I worked on it for a long freaking time! GAAAAAAAAH!! And the whole thing is just messed up. Like, I can't change the font or anything for some reason.

*grrrr*

Okay, let's see...what did I say...

We're going to watch "The King and I" tonight and I'm excited because it has Yul Brynner (spelling?) in it and I love his accent. I love accents.

And it's still possible that we're gonna go see "Star Trek" tomorrow. Yay.

And my Carpe Noctem thought is:
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The Problem with Global Warming:

It doesn't exist.

Yeah, you read that right.

Now, before you roll your eyes, say "typical skeptic" and close this window, maybe you want to hear what I have to say?

I'm not an out-and-out skeptic. Not in the usual sense anyway. Yes, I am very skeptical of things until I have looked into them myself, but I DO look into them. I don't just dismiss every theory that sounds unpleasant; I do actually research them first.

I didn't actually challenge the theory of global warming until last semester. I just figured that it was true, or at least mostly true. Well, it's not quite.

Basically, the theory is that if the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were to increase too much, the earth would get too warm. (This is what global warming is, obviously, lol!) As civilization has become more industrialized, people have been burning a lot more fuel than they used to. Before the Industrial Revolution, people burned wood and coal to heat houses and businesses, but that was about it. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, however, people are burning coal, wood, natural gas and gasoline in huge quantities to generate electrical power, run manufacturing machinery, etc. As a result, we have been putting a lot more carbon dioxide into the air than we used to.

This is where worries about global warming come from. Carbon dioxide is a participant in the greenhouse effect, which warms the planet. We also know that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air has been rising steadily over the last 80 years or so. Well, increased carbon dioxide means an increased greenhouse effect, which will result in global warming right? Well, not exactly.

Although the fear of global warming IS based on scientific reasoning, it's actually more complex than most people think. If you look at most scientific graphs, you can tell that over the past 80 years, the amount of carbon has risen, then dropped back down to extremely low, where it is today. Every once in a while, the carbon dioxide level in the air seems to rise, but it always drops back down again. Thus, global warming isn't actually a problem at all. It's almost a hoax even.

Many people who talk about global warming discuss the fact that in their area of the world, the winters have been unusually warm over the past few years. They say global warming must be happening. This neglects the fact that the entire world is often quite different from one person's corner of it. While one area of the world might be experiencing unusually warm winters, other parts of the world might be having abnormally cool summers. As a result, the *global* temperature does not change very much, despite what might be happening in one region of it.

It is also common to hear that certain large ice sheets that have been the same size for a long time are now starting to melt. This is then used to conclude that the earth ahs a whole is getting warmer. However, this is not sound scientific reasoning. The fact taht an ice sheet is melting is only evidence that *the part of the world that holds the ice sheet* is warming up. For example, a large ice sheet in the Antarctic Peninsula, the Larsen B ice shelf, has experienced a remarkable decline in size over the past few years. Some say that this is evidence for global warming. The problem is that the west Antarctic ice sheet has been *thickening* over the past few years. Thus, while the Antarctic Peninsula is getting warmer, the western part of the Antarctic is getting cooler. It turns out that temperature measurements of Antarctica indicate that overall, Antarctica has actually been cooling since the 1960's.

But, if you dig hard enough, you CAN find *some* evidence to show the earth is warming up as a whole. For example, land-based temperature measurements do show a slight warming trend, even over the past twenty years. The problem with these data, is that they ignore the 70% of the earth's surface, because they ignore what is happening over the oceans. When the entire globe is measured by satellites, no significant warming trend is seen.

Thus, to believe that global warming is occurring, you are forced to rely on the least reliable data and ignore the most reliable data. That's not good scientific practice.

(By the way, this information came primarily from "Exploring Creation with Physical Science" by Dr. Jay L. Wile.)
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Basically it was that, only better and with a better introduction :'(

And then I complained about wanting to go outside, but hating my new house's yard because it's boring and doesn't feel like home...

Then this is where I said that no one took my Challenge from yesterday, but that it's okay...

Then I said something deep and awesome...

Then I said bye and put my signature like this only probably better:

Bye.


GRR.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll comment here instead of carpe noctem

I believe I said all I had to say about this matter...
oh, btw: the other day I watched "an inconvenient truth". well, most of it. some information doesn't match what you said...
well, but just like I said in the «old» post, this is one of the subjects I'm just not willing to think too much about, so I'll just drop it (sorry for taking away your chance to debate =P)

Kendra Logan said...

Yeah, haha, I just used my response to your comment. Maybe that's cheating, though...Lol :)

Oh, hmm. It's completely possible that I just have some things wrong, I guess. Maybe I'll look for that movie sometime.

Haha, it's okay. We already did a little "debating" on this anyway :)

Anonymous said...

nah, this way more people can read it ^_^
lol yeah