My Carbon Footprint

I checked my carbon footprint using the child-friendly carbon calculator. I produce 33 tons of carbon per year which is almost twice the national average of 18 tons. Most of my carbon emissions are the result of flying cross country. You can blame my long distance relationship for that. Visiting my sweetheart is worth the miniscule changes I may be making to the Earth’s climate. Maybe that is selfish of me, but I’m not going stop based on unproven science.

My sweetheart will be happy. :)

I'm off to add more CO2 into the air by flying to El Paso for Jerry's wedding. I have no idea what I'm going to say during my toast.

Global Warming Must Be True

That is why is snowed over Easter weekend. :)

Ads on METRO #4: AAAS

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has offered its full support to fighting global warming. They’ve produced a short video that is heavy on emotion and light on science.

It begins with the president of AAAS, Dr. John Holdren summarily declaring, “Climate change is real. Humans are responsible for a substantial part of it. It’s taking us in dangerous directions.” There you have it. Case closed. And that’s about all of the science you will get from the film.

The rest of the movie tells the sad story of polar bears floating on broken ice and Eskimos losing their homes. I have deep sympathy for the people who are being displaced by the loss of their island habitat, but I have little reason to believe that global warming and/or carbon dioxide is responsible for it. The Earth’s climate is constantly changing. Sea levels have been rising for years (mostly due to tectonic activity). There is little evidence, outside of dubious computer models, to indicate that the present warming trend (less than a degree in half a century) is man made.

But, hard science doesn’t have as much emotional appeal as people (and polar bears) losing their homes. So those who want to convince you of the “crisis” of carbon dioxide would naturally focus on the human side of the story. Still, I expected more science from the publishers of “Science.”

For the record, I am all for conserving power and exploring alternative energy sources, but not at the expense of human progress and development. And I certainly object to the exploitation of tragedy masquerading as science.

St. Francis of Paola, pray for us.

More Global Warming

Dr. Lindzen contributed to a BBC documentary debunking global warming. It was very interesting, but it is hard to get past the fact that most scientists still believe in it. Michael Critchton's novel "State of Fear" takes an interesting, though fictional, look at the issue.

I'm not opposed to taking care of the Earth as long as it does not come at the price of human lives. Sometimes it seems environmentalist see human beings as terrestrial parasites and not souls with dignity.

People need to be our priority. When the World Health Organization reports that 4 million children die each year due to smoke inhalation because they lack electricity, it is hard to convince me that developing natural resources as quickly and cheaply as possible is not a moral imperative.

Strange Science

I just attended another Rethinking Seminar sponsored by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. This evening Dr. Richard S. Lindzen gave an interesting lecture on global warning. His scientific credentials and qualifications are impeccable. He claims there is little evidence that the present warming trend (several tenths of a degree in the last 50 years) is caused by carbon dioxide or by human action.

There has been a large increase in carbon dioxide over the last 30 years. If the alarmists' models are correct, we should have seen a large increase (several degrees) in temperature, yet that has not been observed. Many of the models touted by the environmentalists exaggerate the sensitivity of temperature to CO2. Also, the relationship between warming and CO2 is not linear. Doubling the CO2 content does not double the change in temperature. The more CO2 added to the atmosphere, the less effect the added CO2 has on global warming. It is like painting a window. The first layer of paint may reduce transparency by 75%, but the second layer may only reduce it by 20% and so on.

Besides, CO2 is not the worst of the greenhouse gasses. Water vapor has a much larger greenhouse effect. I wonder what that means for hydrogen powered vehicles.

Efforts to reduce CO2 will have little effect global warming. Dr. Lidzen estimates that if the world had implemented the Kyoto protocol perfectly, then by 2100 we would have succeeded in delaying the warming trend by two full years. We could spend billions of dollars attempting to reduce carbon emissions, with little to no effect on the global climate. Those billions of dollars could be used to provide food and energy to poor people.

As Catholics, we certainly have an obligation to take care of creation, but we must do so wisely. Good stewardship means using our resources efficiently, not wastefully. There may be something to this strange science of global warming, but the world should look at the problem objectively and scientifically. Alarmist thinking and politics have no place in this debate.

Full disclosure: I stole this title of this post from a good article on the subject.