How global warming makes itself known

[polaris93]

To a comment on a Facebook post (https://www.facebook.com/j.richard.jacobs/posts/10153214456707132?comment_id=10153214536382132), Marianne Tong made a number of comments that got my back up, Below is my response to her

Comments

[graywolf44]

Have you seen this yet?

[polaris93]

There are idiots in every group, including the Greens and those who refuse to believe that there's anything to climate change. But here's one thing to think about: When I was in elementary school, 1951-1957, we learned that our atmosphere consisted of 300 parts carbon dioxide per million. Now there's 400 parts per million.

Another: I was born and grew up in Southern California. To go back to it now would kill me, thanks to the excess heat, the smog, and all the rest of it. The firestorms alone are beyond comprehension -- but we never had one before. I think, 2003. When I was a little girl -- younger than eight years old, there was heavy snowpack on the mountains all year round. By the time I was 12, there was at most a dribble during the winter, and none by mid-spring. And so on. Mind you, these data are from my own experience, backed up by all sorts of articles, videos, and other sources.

[graywolf44]

Ok, first of all, let me clarify one thing. I absolutely do believe in climate change, as the earth's climate is "elastic", rather than "static". Always has been, from the time our planet developed an atmosphere, and always will be as long as we have said atmosphere. Speaking of which, our atmosphere right now consists of approximately 78% nitrogen, 14 - 18% oxygen (depending on altitude - example: less in Himalaya's than Death Valley), and about 0.04% CO2. The rest is made up of other trace gases. Significantly reduce, or even remove, any one of those three and all life on earth will cease to exist as we know it (some bacteria may survive, as they're a pesky lot). Remember, we exhale CO2 as we breathe, which is then absorbed by plants, which in turn then exude oxygen. To recap, I do believe in climate change. However, I do not, repeat not, believe that man has any significant effect on the climate, nor can we effect "change" on the climate, as a whole

[polaris93]

I have to agree that those "97% consensus" claims leave something to be desired. Have you read anything by Rupert Sheldrake on the way scientists tend to shut out anything that speaks to the contrary of their claims, no matter how great the scientist that contradicts their claims, or what the evidence is? There is also a book by Chris Carter and Rupert Sheldrake, Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics That goes into the same thing in detail, albeit mainly on this one subject. Pretty good overview of the problem.

Anyway, you're quite right. Between a fear of being taken for a scientistic heretic and a rigid adherence to a mechanistic, materialistic, 19th-century view of reality, it can make it damned hard to get new ideas accepted by scientists. So, yeah.