Global Warming? And Fishing

Global warming is a topic that causes some people to start tap dancing as soon as the subject is brought up.   It's a wonderful topic to discuss as it combines science, pseudo-science, religious fervor - and wild assertions to fly like bullets in combat.  I especially love talking about it to the one's that have had too much of the kool-aid.  But then I am one of those that believe sacred cows make the best hamburgers.  For instance, the fact that a ship full of global warming activists got stuck in ice in the antarctic, during the antarctic summer no less, makes me laugh every time I think about it.  You can't make stuff like that up.

I have some issues with the theory.  My main problem with it is simply that the earth has never had a "stable" temperature range for more than brief periods.  Only 20,000 years ago - a heartbeat in geological time - much of North America was under as much as 2 miles of ice.  This extended down as far as Chicago.  During that time the deserts in the South West weren't deserts, that area received a lot of rainfall as the huge ice-cap pushed the jet stream further south.  Alaska was close to a desert though, although cold one.  That we are in a global warming trend I don't doubt at all, it's just that the trend started a long time ago, 20,000 years ago.  Is man made pollutants accelerating that trend?  That's not all that clear either.

Some scientists are claiming the opposite of warming, saying that we are entering a global cooling period.  I hope they are wrong.  If I had to choose between colder or warmer, I'll take warmer thank you.  Longer fishing seasons?  More fish species moving into my river?  Longer crop growing seasons?  Warmer winters?  I say yes to all of these, and no to the opposites.

Part of what makes me suspicious about the global warming believers, is how hard they believe.  I've been around a while, and I've learned that when people become absolutely certain about something, they've quit thinking.  Human history is rife with instances of where "the science is settled", but it was settled only in their own minds.  Nature and physics aren't convinced by human argument and have a tendency to disprove the most logical of theories.  Ignoring that history...well that is what a lot of people do best, ignore history and so they repeat it.  I'm a lot more convinced by an argument that is given with caveats than one delivered like a sermon in church.

Then there is the theory that this warming trend, if it exists at all, is caused solely and specifically by human beings.  It just completely ignores the most likely cause, the sun.  Our sun isn't perfectly stable in it's heat output.  Global warming says that the temperature on the earth will increase by two to four degrees, depending on who you are listening to.  Two degrees is a minor amount of heat differential, as is four degrees.  What overall percentage of heat output of the sun would it take to cause that?  The sun's surface is about 10,000 degrees F.  This is an approximation, the more you read about it the less agreement you'll find just on that one fact.  That big ball of fire is radiating at 10,000 degrees and we're talking about the average temperature of the earth rising two to four degrees and the cause of that small rise in temperature isn't at least partly related to the variablity of the sun?  Yeah, right.  That makes total sense to me.  And forget that the earth really isn't a 100% stable environment either.  Or that the earth has a long history of cooling off and warming up in cyles. 

And then at the end of the day, basically, so what?  So what if the earth is warming up?  Or cooling down?  Do you really think there is anything that can be or will be done about it?  Even if - Even if there is global warming and it is 100% human caused, and even if we could all agree on exactly what had to be done, do you think there will be a global consensus to actually do it? 

And yet it's at least as likely that it's not human caused and we can't do anything about it.  Except we can do something, we can do what humans have done through out their history - adapt.  Our barely upright ancestors were able to adapt and thrive through all kinds of climates and weather conditions, and we have vastly superior technology and resources to their camp fires and fur coats.  Why the panic?  We'll survive, and quite possibly thrive even better if the world warms up just a tad.

Personally I'm hoping global warming is real.  I wouldn't mind more productive fishing days in the year and with more species to fish for.  I went fishing yesterday and didn't get a bite - but if the water had been warmer?