News flash: The global warming scare is based on bad science, and if we're not careful it could lead to disastrous economic policies.
As an environmentalist myself, I firmly believe in the wisdom of managing our resources wisely, and behaving as responsible stewards of the planet. And I'm definitely sympathetic with the intentions of those who are sounding an alarm over global warming. Nevertheless, far from the unanimity we frequently read about in media reports, the fact is that climatologists do not all agree that the climate is warming much at all, and if it is, to what extent this may be caused by human activity.
Remember that climate changes have occurred both cyclically and randomly throughout the world's history. Glaciers come and go. Deserts form, then disperse. Prevailing winds no longer prevail.
But many of the most alarming global warming statistics and popularly believed proof points are just misleading. Yes, Arctic ice is thinner than ever today, but the Antarctic ice sheet is apparently thicker than ever. Yes, Kilimanjaro is losing its snow cover, but rather than rising temperatures, the culprit is falling humidity in that region. Yes, many glaciers are shrinking, but about as many are growing. And remember that worrisome hole in the ozone layer detected by satellite a few years ago? It appears to be closing up now.
My favorite example, however, is the news story that the decade of the 1990's was the hottest single decade ever measured. Remember that? Well, this was based on a global average of temperatures recorded at all the various weather stations around the world. Through the 1980's there were roughly 12,000 stations, but in the early 1990's the total shrank to just 7,000. And guess what? The vast majority of weather stations that stopped reporting at that time were operated by the Soviet Union, which imploded at the beginning of the decade. You work it out.
In point of fact, scientists estimate the average surface temperature on Earth is about 1 degree Fahrenheit warmer today than a hundred years ago. But even this is a rise that would occur naturally, at the end of a climatic period known as the "Little Ice Age," which began around 1200 A.D. and came to an end around 1900 A.D. And between major ice ages (which occur every 20,000 to 40,000 years) sea levels do rise, naturally, nearly six inches per century. This doesn't sound like much, but it does mean the sea has risen two or three feet since Venice dug its first canal.
Today's hysteria over global warming is a "meme bubble," which - similar to a financial or economic bubble - is an inflation of value based mostly on positive feedback. As people become aware of an idea (or "meme"), they call attention to facts and ideas that support it, while disregarding those that don't. As more people pile on to the meme they emphasize their own supporting facts, so the meme becomes even more persuasive, attracting more supporters, reinforcing itself until at some critical tipping point it takes on a life of its own.
A meme bubble occurs because of the positive feedback loops in human interaction, the same way an economic bubble occurs. The inflation of housing prices behind the current financial crisis was generated when people made money by buying, financing, and flipping homes, leading even more people to do so, which increased housing values further, which led even more people to pile on, and so forth.
The point is that if we try to react to the meme bubble of global warming with draconian, Kyoto-like policies drastically restricting carbon emissions, it will not only be extremely costly, but these actions will probably have no detectable impact on the climate. If fully implemented, such measures would cost literally trillions of dollars in reduced productivity and economic inefficiency - money that would do much more good for the human race if it were deployed to cure disease, eradicate poverty, or create a colony on Mars, for that matter.
I suspect that meme bubbles generated by the positive feedback loops inherent in human interactions might become even more prevalent, more persuasive, and possibly more damaging to our political decision-making, as new technologies and social networks continue to improve the speed and efficiency of interaction itself.
In any case, I will make this confident prediction: Within no more than five or ten years, the global warming meme bubble will collapse, and the issue will exit the world political scene for good. And, although I can't predict what the next meme bubble will be, I am positive there will be one.
OK, there I said it. The floor is now open for discussion.
As I often tell those working on political support efforts, change your label to "Clean Air" and I'll support it. Use the "global warming" label and I won't.
But the "meme bubble" was also responsible for other ills. In the early 90s McDonalds used Styrofoam containers which increased the shelf-time of their food (allowing for less staged food -- critical to their model -- to be thrown away). To be responsible they tested a recycling program in Seattle (they're not the Emerald City for nothing). But there was more to the story.
There was a polystyrene recycler in Portland (there aren't many). McDonalds was paying for a truck to go there so they were going to 'fill' the truck by allowing local institutions to join them, for free. Working at a large regional bank with large cafeterias, I was thrilled to help plan diverting large portions of our waste out of the stream into McDonald's trucks. The same was being done by one of the local University cafeterias. Only the effort was killed by the "meme bubble".
Public campaigns against CFCs and 'litter' caused McDonalds to abandon use of polystyrene. Only CFCs had been removed from all polystyrene processes 5 years prior (it wasn't like McDonalds was using 'old' polystyrene) and the biggest case for litter was at a major ferry stop in Washington state where the waits were long enough to walk to the McDonalds and grab a snack. The winds there were also wicked and would grab trash and blow it into the water. The point being even without the polystyrene the garbage still blew into the water.
One other argument was for the paper wrappers and their biodegredation factors -- only nothing degrades in landfills and the paper wrappers are lined in plastic.
We all lost big due to ill-informed opinion. Which is why I continue to insist there are 4-Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Responsibility.
It appears that this "meme bubble" may be vulnerable to greater concerns about lost jobs and vanishing prosperity. It's already pretty low on a list of public priorities, according to the polls. It helps to see it from the bubble perspective though. We are now all quite familiar with the implications of letting one (such as housing/credit) expand uncontrollably.
Anyway, the legislation being rammed through congress is a pretty dishonest way of addressing this issue -- or at least the issue of our foreign oil dependence. (An energy consumption tax would have have been more honest, straightforward and transparent.) Having barely passed in the House in its present state, it will be very surprising if it makes it through the Senate without being radically reworked.