Maybe Man IS To Blame For The Climate

I used to be a "climate denier". By that I mean I believed that climate change was real, but man's impact has been minimal to nonexistent. But that has changed.

Back in August of 2020, Death Valley, California posted a temperature of 130 degrees (Fahrenheit, cause, come on, if Celsius we wouldn't be here!) This was reported as the highest temperature since 1913, when it reached 134. What has happened between 1913 and 2020?

We had an industrial revolution that pumped a lot of pollution into the atmosphere.

We had reports of Global Cooling in the 1970s - the world was going into a new ice age. I know, you can't believe that - but that was what scientists reported.

We started a campaign to address the pollution. The EPA got its start. The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland stopped burning. The catalytic converter became the norm in our cars.

Then around 2000, the Rev. Al Gore (Minister of Mother Earth) started showing a slide show of the dangers of Global Warming.

And in August of 2020, Death Valley, California posted the highest temperature since 1913.

So what does this tell us? Man, by his pollution, brought the earth to the brink of an ice age, and by eliminating pollution, brought the earth to the brink of a worldwide Death Valley. 

Maybe man IS the reason for global climate change. 

The thing that scares me is that we have scientists telling us what we need to do to fix it. And each group has a remarkably different method. For instance, some want to "seed" clouds with reflective materials to bounce sunlight away. 

What if scientists are wrong? What if what they tell us swings us deeper into the embrace of Heat Miser - or, back to Snow Miser?  

I for one have little faith in what the scientific experts of 2020 tell us. After all, the experts DID tell us of the coming ice age in the 1970s. 

"But J.P., the scientists of today are much smarter than those in the 1970s. They have more data and know more of how things work."

Can you tell me that the scientists in 50 years aren't going to prove today's scientists wrong too?

Does man have an impact on the climate? I believe so. But can man fix it? I don't know. I'm more afraid that he will cause more damage in the process.

©Emittravel 2021

Man-made Global Warming? Mother Nature Disagrees!

We've heard much over the last few years, from politicians to The Weather Channel, from celebrities to bloggers, and preachers of hysteria everywhere, that mankind has a death wish and that the world is on its way to being the ultimate bake sale product. Former Vice President Al Gore even set aside his political ambitions and donned the robes of religious authority in the worship of Mother Earth.

The major push is that through mankind's selfish ambitions, and total disregard for the earth's natural resources, the earth's global temperature is on a dangerous climb upwards. Now, there has been plenty of dissent concerning this push, but this blog entry is not to give an in-depth investigation into each argument. Some of them have been things like the temperature on Mars has been on the rise (which is pretty amazing to think that that SUV you are driving has more than just a global impact - it has a galactic impact as well), or that the data that is being used was originally obtained from technology that was just that side of indoor plumbing, and has since been manipulated to the point that the accuracy has greatly diminished to something less than blind-folded skeet shooting. No, this blog entry is to look at something else. Something beyond mankind's ability to control. I'm not even talking about the sun (which covers that Mars "inconvenient truth"). I'm talking about the mother of all polluters: toxic-fume belching volcanoes.

I remember being told by the scientific community back in the early 1980s when Mount St. Helens erupted, that there was more pollution, toxic greenhouse gases, and carbon dioxide (which was before the EPA decided that exhaling was polluting) from that one eruption, than all of the industrial age COMBINED.

That, my dear readers, is worth repeating:

I remember being told by the scientific community back in the early 1980s when Mount St. Helens erupted, that there was more pollution, toxic greenhouse gases, and carbon dioxide from that one eruption, than all of the industrial age COMBINED.

My question is, what happened to it all? I mean really! If what we have done to the earth is borderline irreparable, where is the damage from Mount St. Helens? I don't remember seeing a slide show condemning Mother Earth for her blatant disregard for her own well being. Come on, shouldn't someone fully take over power of attorney when it comes to her affairs? Sounds to me like she is totally incapable of caring for herself.

And Mt. St. Helens isn't my only example. In the first quarter of this year, Eyjafjallajökull (a name I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce, for fear that my "tongue will snap off its rollers" - to quote the great Hawkeye) erupted in Greenland. The most repeated news item I heard concerning this (and I admit, I don't watch news 24/7) was the disruption to air traffic over the area. I heard not a peep about the competition to man's race to the "finished" line.

Instead we have received a barrage of condemnation for man's behavior as a tenant, and demands for the "great landlord" to evict us, and nothing concerning the earth's volcanoes to please "stick a cork in it". But if a volcano is capable of spewing out much more destruction than all of man's efforts combined, than I would think it would warrant at least one slide in Mr. Gore's PowerPoint presentation. If the atmosphere wasn't so darned efficient at cleaning up after itself . . .

When it comes to "Joe vs. the Volcano", the volcano wins hands down.

©Emittravel 2010