Aside from the deceptive graphing (see Tutte), my problem with these alarmist graphs is that we know nothing about what they mean. Since we have only been gathering data for 30 years or so, we have no idea what the "natural range" for this variable is. In fact, we have no idea what the natural range of temperatures for the Earth is -- e.g., do we really know what the mean temperature during the Roman Empire was? We don't know where CO2 comes from, or where it is stored. A recent article indicated that the ocean stores enormous amounts of CO2, CO and other gasses. I bought gas saving cars for years, but then discovered that all my liberal friends (big donors to the Sierra Club) drove gas-guzzling SUV's. Scientists are paid to be alarmist -- that's how they get funding -- e.g., looking for asteroids that might hit the Earth. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to drop everything every time they scream that the sky is falling. Scientists have cried wolf about 10^6 times too often, and they've used up all their credibility. They've become yet another political lobbying group -- just look at any issue of Scientific American for the past 10 years or so. At 09:23 AM 1/16/2004, Ed Pegg Jr wrote:
Can you laugh away this graph? http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/figures/co2obs.jpg
Eventually, we're going to find out what happens when this graph hits 420, or higher. A conservative, in my mind, would be happy with the current levels of carbon dioxide, and would not want to take the risk of ever higher levels.
--Ed Pegg Jr.
--- Eugene Salamin <gene_salamin@yahoo.com> wrote:
This little chuckle pales in comparison to the damage done by the pervasive belief that nuclear power is unsafe, or that human activity is casusing global temperatures increases.
Gene