I tend to be a party pooper and not participate in these things, but the complete absurdity and randomness of this blogging virus amused me. I'm always a sucker for the non sequitur. Plus, it's not like I've been flush with topics to write about, lately, so here goes...
Dikkii has tagged me with the following task:
- Grab the nearest book...
- Name the book and the author...
Title: Environmental Gore: A Constructive Response to Earth in the Balance
Editor: John A. Baden
Author of the page in question: Richard S. Lindzen
Year book published: 1994
- Turn to page 123...
- Go to the fifth sentence on the page...
- Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog...
Moreover, according to many studies by economists, agronomists, and hydrologists, there would be little difficulty adapting to such warming if it were to occur. Many aspects of the "catastrophe" scenario have already been largely discounted by the scientific community. For example, fears of massive sea level increases accompanied many of the early discussions of global warming, but these estimates have been steadily reduced by orders of magnitude, and now it is widely agreed that even the potential contribution of warming to sea level rise would be swamped by other more important factors.- Tag three more folks...
Jim Lippard
Steve
Akuwa
I won't take it personally if any of you decide not to pick up the baton.
6 comments:
Looks like they fixed up the comments thing with those of us on New Blogger.
And I see you're reading up on "global warming denialism". Well done. i like.
It's pretty hard to argue with that ice core data (also here), as far as I can tell from my layman's seat, anyway.
The book seems a bit dated, coming out in 1994? I think only time will tell and I'm now curious to see what these more impotant factors are in this book. It seems very contrary to Al Gore's findings. I still highly reccomend "An Inconvenient Truth" if you haven't seen it already. In the meantime I'll try and get to that tag soon!
Steve, the tag said "grab the nearest book", which is not necessarily a book you're currently reading or one you agree with 100%.
I own the DVD of Al Gore's movie. I think it's an excellent film. Moreover, as I said above, I find it rather difficult to argue with the data he presents.
On the other hand, I note with some interest that Richard Lindzen still counts himself among the GW "deniers". As a lay person, I don't really know what to make of this. Either Lindzen is a stubborn idiot or ???
I do have to say, however, that while Lindzen may be completely off base, a lot of the attacks on him (and the small number of other remaining deniers out there in the world) strike me as a tad too much in the ad hominem camp, since they make a big deal about him being paid by Exxon. Either his data and arguments are true or they are not, regardless of the source of funding for the research. Saying "Lindzen is wrong because he's paid by the oil interests" is a logical fallacy.
Anyway, the most interesting perspective on the issue I've seen recently is this post by David Friedman. He makes the point that if global warming is real then whether it is anthropogenic or not is almost completely irrelevant.
Oh, I didn't assume you subscribed to Lindzen's writings--I was just saying, judging from that tidbit of info, he seems to differ some from Gore's findings. Sorry if I wasn't clear here. I'll check the link (plus, I need to relink you to my log as well).
Oops, I meant Baden's writings. Anyhow, I read the Friedman post. He's right somewhat about the spending on something we aren't 100% certain about. Still, I think subscribing to a financially indifferent stance is a bit of a copout approach to how we are handling things. See, we're going about so many things in such an incorrect manner, mainly by continuing, as a species (a so-called civilized one), to engaze in barbaric and enormously costly wars as a means to settle differences (which brings us back to the religion thing). While ultimately, I wanna be optimistic and take a humanist approach, a small part of me says screw it, let us get what we deserve. My problem is me, and other living things being taken down with the idiots who are to blame. Man, I need a drink now. =/
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