Climate Change

If you've been reading at all and have seen the wide variety of issues that I've commented on, you're probably not surprised that I finally have gotten around to climate change.  When the Pope came out with his encyclical last week, the media and the alarmists were all abuzz.  So I figured I might as well start in on dissecting the issue.

First, I'm not a climate change denier.  I'm also not a climate change zealot.  I guess I'm sort of a skeptic.  I've lived long enough to be skeptical about a lot of things.  And I've seen to many charlatans and snake-oil salesman types embrace this issue to believe all that is being somewhat hysterically predicted.  When I peel the onion on a lot of these folks, it usually comes down to money.  In some way, what they are advocating stands to make them rich.  Or richer.  So when someone says we must do this or that and if we don't we'll suffer dire consequences, I've come to the point that the first thing I do is investigate who stands to benefit if we do this or that.  And it is usually the advocate.

I also think there are an incredible number of differing opinions regarding this issue.  It's sort of like Economists.  Put 5 Economists in a room and you'll get 5 economic theories and predictions.  Same with the climate change crowd.  They are all over the map.  For every advocate based on scientific "evidence" there is a reasonable and rationale scientist saying...well...BS.  So who to believe?  I bet there is a bit of truth in all of them, but most are so blinded by their brilliance that they can't see any alternatives.

I came across this very simple analysis at Bloomberg Business.  You can check it out here.  Essentially it points out that greenhouse gas emissions are having an impact.  In simple terms, mankind has an impact on the environment.  We are responsible for some amount of climate change.  To me this is not a dramatic revelation.  Rather it is more a blinding statement of the obvious.  There are 7 billion people on the planet.  So it sorta stands to reason we will impact the environment.

It's interesting that the documented change is 1.4 degrees from 1880 to 2015.  Is that a big deal?  I don't know.  Again, some will wring their hands and flop down on the floor wailing.  Some will shrug their shoulders.  I think I'm in the latter camp.

I do think there are things we can do and should be doing.  And I think the United States and the enlightened world are doing a ton of things to mitigate the impacts.  But the key isn't the damage being done by places that are making a pretty dramatic effort to put programs in place to help.  The key is getting places like China, Brazil, Russia, India, etc to step up to the table.  And it until that happens,  we can do all that we are doing and more and it won't make much difference.

So I think what we do is continue to do what we're doing to focus on improving the environment, do not support con-men (are you listening Al Gore?) who stand to benefit from others naivety, encourage other countries and societies to step up to supporting rationale environmental programs, and continue to support credible research into the problem.

But having said all that, it's pretty difficult to get too excited about 1.4 degrees in 135 years.  And if it's not going to have any measurable impact until my grandchildren's, grandchildren's, grandchildren are born, well then I'm not losing a lot of sleep.