Global Warming? Here’s the Real Point.

Is global warming, or global climate change, for real? To be honest, I’m not sure, but I do not buy into man-made global warming. I mean heck, the globe’s had a fluctuating climate since before mankind. The earth transformed itself from the Ice Age 12,000 years ago long before the man-made industrial age.

Silly remarks about global warming being ‘settled science’ I find tough to stomach. You want settled science, stick with The Doppler Effect and ‘PV=nRT.’ Global climate change is no more a settled issue than is the age old question, ‘What came first, the chicken or the egg?’

For practical purposes, the entire global climate change discussion is little more than a highly toxic non-productive distraction to the real point. The end game, simply put, is to improve our energy technology to the point of self-sustaining renewable energy, a valiant goal to be sure. So the best approach is to stop the name calling and arguing who’s right about global warming, and just get the research underway.

Global warming believers want renewable green energy so as to not be haunted by these troublesome CO2 molecules. The non-believers, not so troubled by the CO2 that is exhaled with every breath, will gladly accept renewable green energy so long as it comes at a competitive market price. That means no artificial support by government subsidies. If these energy technology options viably come to the market, the global warming discussion is circumvented. Really, that’s it, stop the nonsensical blather about whether or not the globe is warming, just concentrate on the technology to put one’s sensibilities at ease.

Market viability is the integral aspect for success. If you tell me the solar power of today has already arrived, I’ll suggest that you’re full of baloney. If a product’s viability is dependent upon a government subsidy to compete in the market place, then, quite frankly, it’s not yet ready for consumption on a mass scale. Perhaps, and hopefully, the next generation of technology will meet the mark. While this research is in progress, though, we must continue to access our own domestic oil and natural gas energy sources. This would continue until a better energy alternative is available efficiently and in appropriately abundant quantities.

The U.S. and Europe have pollution standards and energy efficiency standards in place. Yes, we are major consumers of energy but our pollution standards mean that environmental health has been factored into the energy that we consume. Because of this environmental awareness our citizens need not breathe through surgical masks that are so popular amongst citizens living in industrial areas of China. Legislating local or regional standards merely penalizes, or makes more expensive, energy usage for one’s existence in those legislated locales. You want renewable energy and the culmination of the global climate change harangue? Improve the energy technology to the point where the product is available worldwide at market prices. It would be laughable for a climate change believer to think that California residents voting to have the highest (cleanest) fuel standards for our cars is a move in the right direction. Task completion would only come to fruition through a future generation technology whereby energy becomes so inexpensive and available that citizens of Namibia, for example, no longer need to burn dung to heat their huts.

How about this for a step in the correct direction, consider those billions of dollars in subsidies paid out to increase consumption of solar energy amongst the world’s wealthiest nations and residents. Every dollar consumed in this way is a wasted opportunity. It would be more productive to invest those billions in subsidies, instead, on research to improve that technology and accelerate the timeframe where its next generation technology may come to market possibly making it ready for consumption worldwide.

For too much of the world’s population climate change is simply an issue of which they’ll never have the luxury of concerning themselves. If a person’s main concern is ‘Where can I get food and clean water to survive another day,’ they’ll never care about how many CO2 molecules are bouncing around in the atmosphere. But if renewable green energy is made available to them, then they can help in the task of ‘saving the earth’ without even thinking about it. For those of us who do not think that the globe is in climate peril, think instead of how much better off we’d be if alternative energy meant less money flowing into the unpredictability of the Middle East.

Now let’s stop the non-sensical ‘Hoaxer versus Denier’ name calling and have a Happy Earth Day.

-klem