We need to remember that geologists are trained to look DOWN at the soil, earth's crust and BACK to the past and Atmospheric physicists look UP at the atmosphere and at what is happening NOW and in the future. They have totally different training.
There is actually less training in common between geologists and atmospheric physicists than a gynaecologist and a dentist and you would not dream of mixing those two groups of medical professionals up. Many geologists study NO physics at all. And we are talking about climate change and our weather patterns, not simply global warming.
In Australia we have Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist and one whose work has discredited by the majority of the scientific community because it defies some of the laws of physics, publicising his new anti climate change book. He has labelled climate change theory an "ascientific, urban, religious, fundamentalist movement" promoted by academics and activists who would be "unemployable outside taxpayer-funded climate institutes". Plimer says that climate change has become the new Western religion with the elements of failed European socialism and Christianity and it imposes guilt on the community, creates a fear of damnation, demands appeasement by selling indulgences to the faithful, ignores any contrary information, demonises dissenters.This is amazing diatribe does nor sit well with me.
The climate has change of the millennia and there have been greater and more rapid changes in the past and we've had varying carbon levels in the past. In this, Plimmer is obviously correct. But what is happening now is different, the atmospheric changes have been measured and are purely caused by man made pollution. The current problem is superimposed on top of the history described by Plimer and has a shorter time frame.
The greenhouse effect is not new it was predicted over 30 years ago to my certain knowledge because while my kids were small I taught secondary school biology so that I had school hours and holidays to fit in with my family. I taught about the potential for global warming then but never seriously thinking we would let things get as bad as they are now.
In Australia our Family First Senator Steve Fielding has made up his mind on climate change and apparently according to this self appointed "expert" the world is not warming now, and humans are not changing the climate.
Senator Fielding holds a crucial vote in Australia's upper house but the government and the countries top scientists have been unable to counter the skeptics misinformation. But he's released a document setting out his position and he says "Global temperature isn't rising". I would love the bulk of scientists who are warning us of the need for urgent action to be wrong but there is too much evidence they are right and the risk to my grandchildren is too great to take. I refuse to gamble with their future!
The naysayers are having campaigns on TV and behind closed doors to scare politicians and put our children's future at risk. Exxon, the world's largest oil company still funds lobby groups to question global warming, despite its public pledge to cut support for climate change denial. ExxonMobil has an ethical problem in that while it tells us all that is has stopped funding the skeptics to spread misinformation, in fact it continues to do so.
ExxonMobil's company records show they gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the National Centre for Policy Analysis in Dallas, which received $75,000, and the Heritage Foundation in Washington, which received $50,000. The very same climate-change skeptics conference in Washington last month Family First Senator Steve Fielding attended was cosponsored by the latter.
I guess we can expect big business like the oils and coal industries to be reluctant to move their investment into new areas but we should be able to expect basic honesty from large corporations.
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