We're doing fine

There are some things about climate that need to be addressed.

In the United States, there is a children's entertainer pushing a doomsday outcome for global warming. He has gone so far as to call for jailing anyone who disagrees. Pretty harsh for a children's entertainer, I know. Other people have been calling for similar measures, such as investigating oil companies to "prove" they knew about global warming and did nothing. What does all of this mean? First, this is NOT science in any fashion. Scientists seek knowledge. They test theories, they do experiments, then the information is presented to the public. The public is then free to agree or disagree, as can other scientists. If other scientists question a discovery, that's fine. If someone can prove the theory wrong, then a new theory is required. Scientists don't jail people who disagree. The public and politicians who don't understand science, don't care, or have an agenda to push are the ones who behave aggressively, trying to silence all differing ideas.

Has climate changed? Of course--everything changes. Did humans contribute? Everything on the planet affects climate to some degree or another. The question is how much. People who believe that global warming is bad think it's a large amount. They constantly repeat the "hottest year ever" claim, thinking that a hot year proves humans did this. It does not. Not in any way. Reporting a record in temperature says nothing about the cause of that record. It's just a record, based on whatever data is being used. It's the largest or highest number in the series.

What about "extreme weather"? There have been fewer hurricanes and tornadoes than in the past. Wildfires are affected by many things--wind, fuel, location, wind, etc. If people leave a lot of dead underbrush, etc, there's plenty of fuel. Building among trees increases the chances of the home being burned if there's a fire. Sometimes, nothing can be done. Fire is a part of a nature and humans do not control nature, only their reactions to it. Same for floods--where homes are built, whether rivers are dredged, etc all have a large influence on flooding. Flash flooding is not as affected by such things, but there are still actions that can be taken to reduce the impact of flash floods. Heavy rains can't be controlled, of course, and have always been a cause of flash floods. Rain levels vary from year to year but no real increase has been seen in the levels. That is not to say there are not more floods in some places, fewer in others. That is how weather works and heavy rain is weather, not climate. There is evidence that precipitation is not increasing when averaged over the globe, though it's very difficult to get sufficient data to know for certain.

All of these weather phenomena are scary. However, they are a part of nature and always have been. People in developed countries do have an advantage--instead of throwing buckets of water on a fire, these countries have fire trucks, high pressure water lines, telephones, etc that really help in fighting fires. Fossil fuels made this possible. Same for having hospitals to treat the injured, and having helicopters and ambulances to transport people who are injured to those hospitals. Without fossil fuels, probably none of this would have happened. For hundreds of years, people died due to long distances from help, poor sanitation, etc. Reliable, 24/7 energy changed all of that. Who wants to go back to the "old days" with shorter lives and struggling to survive?

The earth we live on is doing fine and so are humans. There's no reason to drastically change how we live, for the worse especially. Fossil fuels have made life better and the claim these can cause CAGW really doesn't hold up when one considers the evidence. Keeping the planet as clean as possible is a laudable practice. However, there is no reason to fear modern life.

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