A friend recently pointed out to me that we have about 100-120 years of weather history data and earth has been here for about 4,000 – 300,000,000,000 years, so we simply don’t have enough data to say which way it’s headed. I know we can all agree that climate it’s a changing, for sure. For example, just yesterday it was 83 here and today only getting up to 71.
http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-pacific-warming-20140923-story.html
Excerpt
Naturally occurring changes in winds, not human-caused climate change, are responsible for most of the warming on land and in the sea along the West Coast of North America over the last century, a study has found.
The analysis challenges assumptions that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been a significant driver of the increase in temperatures observed over many decades in the ocean and along the coastline from Alaska to California.
The argument that we only have a short period of data collection as a reason to believe we can’t do anything about harmful patterns of climate change is just ignorant. We have data that goes back hundreds of thousands of years. Dudes need to watch Nova more often, and get over the idea that because it comes from what you think is a ‘liberal’ network that it can’t be of any value. Same for the lack of support for public education. Same for ignoring the knowledge and understanding we have about the good that vaccinating our kids accomplishes.
Good point Art. Ice core analyses and earth core strata analysis (like at the Grand Canyon) does provide information on the past weather patterns. The 100-120 years of data referred to are actual temperatures and the other analyses show drought periods, wet periods, etc.
As you know, “Nova” means “doesn’t go” in Spanish (just threw that in there to fulfill FOCM’s obligation to educate as well as inform and encourage discussion.)