It’s always staggering to me that people deny climate change. The unwashed masses with their high school equivalency diplomas clutched in raised fists always seem to be the biggest group clamoring that Climate Change is a joke, not based on science, and is just a conspiracy cooked up by those granola-eating, hemp-wearing, pot-smoking, hippy, liberal freaks.
I may have said this before, but I find it frustrating that these same people will quote as gospel anything anyone who even hints that they’re a scientist says (or a bought and paid for lapdog scientist of Big Oil) if the issue is unrelated to the environment. Actually let me change that statement. They will believe anything a scientist says as long as it doesn’t interfere with their way of life. That’s the core of it really. People don’t want to be told that the way they live is wasteful and harmful to everything that supports life on the planet; A nice mashing together of selfishness and apathy. Yep, we humans are masters of nothing if not deluding ourselves (Me included, btw).
Perhaps the problem here was the original name of the phenomena: Global Warming. So when Joe-Bob McIdiotstick steps outside on a July afternoon and it’s only 10 degrees Celsius and declares this Global Warming thing is crap, he has to realize that it’s not Municipal Warming. Global Warming is an average of temperatures from around the planet…you know, hence the word global being in the name. They’re not basing their findings on the plastic, dollar-store thermometer sitting outside your kitchen window.
Another problem is that people hear that our global temperature has risen one degree in the last 100 years. One freaking degree??? What’s the hell is the big deal? The big deal is a global variance of only a few degrees has a massive effect on conditions on our planet. Its not the difference between wearing a t-shirt or a windbreaker. For example, a global temperature of only 2 – 5 degrees cooler than what we have now existed during the last ice age. And the silly little degree warmer we have now has already caused a 40% loss of our polar ice caps which, incidentally, help moderate the earth’s temperature by reflecting a lot of sunlight back into space instead of absorbing it, thus their loss is compounding the warming effect. Oh, and perhaps some remember Hurricane Katrina. Well, we can expect much more of the same. I wouldn’t buy coastal property in south eastern or southern United States if I were you. Oh and us inlanders don’t get away from the problems either. We can expect a rise in the number and severity of tornadoes, especially in designated “Tornado Alleys” regions – all because of one degree. I wonder what will happen with another degree or two.
Anyway, before I go off on too much of rant (too late, I guess), here is a good video from TED on what actually goes into those peskily inflammatory and alarmist climate change headlines: http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_pike_the_science_behind_a_climate_headline.html
Can’t watch the video here, but good post. I agree that with the amount of conflicting news about this one, it’s no surprise that folks are swayed by the easy doubt rather than the hard reality.
Incidentally, given the probability of more extreme weather to come, what do you think would be a better investment: tearing out my laneway to replace it with a heated asphalt solution with energy supplied by natural gas, or just buying a snow blower with a wonderfully inefficient gas engine. Optionally, I could maybe just put a roof over the whole thing and be done with it.
Thoughts?
I’d go with a small snow blower (8hp). It’s cheaper than a new laneway with heating run through it, and probably less polluting in the long run. I think I put about 3-5 tanks (and the tank isn’t very big) of gas through our bigger (11hp) snow blower in a winter, and our laneway is probably about 2.5 times the size of yours. I understand why you want a snow blower. Your laneway isn’t very big but those banks build up very quickly there in the burbs. One could give oneself a coronary trying to hurl the snow up to the top of those by hand. Of course, in a few years you’ll have a couple of boys who’ll be strong enough to do it for you….