Saturday, February 9, 2008

Most Scientists Agree...

The above linked National Geographic article uses a funny phrase in my opinion. In response to the debate over Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, the magazine decided to run this article about what "most scientists agree" on.
There are quite a few claims mentioned:
- stronger hurricanes doubling
- more intense heat waves
- death!
- extinct species (and new ones)
- sea levels rising
- ice free Arctic Ocean
If you read through the article, you will find that each topic is discussed, but hardly decided upon. The author will lay down a fact saying the data proves Gore is right, then immediately quote some scientist who says it could just be a coincidence basically. My question is this:
Is "Global Warming" just an artifact of the data form our changing planet?
When someone tells me "most scientists agree", I am not sure if I believe them. Didn't we use to believe scientists who knew the world was flat? Why can't we know for sure that global warming is real and we are the cause? Or do we really even need to know....
I would rather they start attacking these problems, instead of spending so much time debating the causes. It might just be that our time on this planet is coming to a close. It seems to me (from basic science courses) that the Earth has always been changing; we have just been lucky enough to be around long enough to catch a glimpse of the bigger picture. Whether or not we know the real cause, we can see there are problems that we can fix. It's time to focus on fixing the problems and accept that we don't have all the answers...

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