Scuttlebutt

In response to the vast public outcry for the details of my position on global warming:

I am on the fence about global warming. On the one hand, I know it is true that humans are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide to multiple times what it is w/o human influence. I also know that we are cutting down vast swaths of jungle, and that agriculture has been eliminating trees for many thousands of years. (And incidentally causing the topsoil to wash away en masse into the ocean.)

On the other hand, I just don’t think we can accurately enough measure a 0.3 degree jump in temperature every decade for the last few decades well enough to assert that it’s not experimental error. I also know that the climate is a chaotic system (a system with non-linear feedback).

I know that in 60 years, things that look impossible now will be trivial. I suspect that applies to CO2, H2O and NO2 clean-up (see my position on nanotechnology), but I’d sure hate to be wrong.

I do think the risk, and the obvious likelihood of global warming from a massive increase in greenhouse gasses simultaneous with destruction of the natural mechanism for eliminating those gasses, is far too great to ignore.

My position on global warming is that when people argue that it’s going to cut into their first-world lifestyle or profit margin to fight global warming, they deserve a big “fuck you”. When people (e.g. people in the third world) are going to die from being forced to spend resources/limit options fighting global warming, I think the needs of the people dying now have to be put above the needs of people who hypothetically might die in the future.