My in-box is flooded these days, just flooded, with bloody articles on global warming. There's nothing but a sea of pending catastrophe washing into my brain. There's never much data, just good choice quotes by scientists saying "...the data suggests..."
Occasionally, I am privvy to the data. It's not a pretty sight. The data is so complex and so heavily massaged and tweaked that it's enough to make you think folks are making up their own numbers--or at least that they could if they wanted to. On one scale scientists are operating on the grandest level anyone could ask for on this planet. Thinking and theorizing about the weather is on the edge of magic. But the actual measurements, the search for millimeter differences in water levels, temperature, wind patterns, etc. is on the level of minutae as to be virtually insignificant.
I'm not complaining about any of this. It's just getting rather tiresome. The point I try to make to folks is that there are so many things we can and should be doing right now to combat global warming that will actually do a great deal of good in the world, simple things like line drying the wash, driving the speed limit, taking mass transit, setting back thermostats, buying compact fluorescent lamps, watching less TV, recycling, eating organic, eating less meat. You know what you've got to do...
Occasionally, I am privvy to the data. It's not a pretty sight. The data is so complex and so heavily massaged and tweaked that it's enough to make you think folks are making up their own numbers--or at least that they could if they wanted to. On one scale scientists are operating on the grandest level anyone could ask for on this planet. Thinking and theorizing about the weather is on the edge of magic. But the actual measurements, the search for millimeter differences in water levels, temperature, wind patterns, etc. is on the level of minutae as to be virtually insignificant.
I'm not complaining about any of this. It's just getting rather tiresome. The point I try to make to folks is that there are so many things we can and should be doing right now to combat global warming that will actually do a great deal of good in the world, simple things like line drying the wash, driving the speed limit, taking mass transit, setting back thermostats, buying compact fluorescent lamps, watching less TV, recycling, eating organic, eating less meat. You know what you've got to do...
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