Julian Grimm wrote:
While the 'facts' do seem to suggest it exactly how long have we had detailed, accurate records of the weather? When added to the amount of time we haven't and are only giving our best guesses as to what is causing it the truth is WE REALLY DON"Y KNOW. Things like this very well could have happened prior to our records and we would never know it did.
That's a damn good question, and the answer is, as ever, complicated. Direct weather records (what speed the wind blew at, what was the temperature, how much rain fell over a square inch) only go back about a century and a half with any real accuracy. Historical writings will often mention unusual events. Beyond that we have to look further afield, to nonhuman witnesses. Sediments do allow us to see what conditions were like some way into the past, however. Dendrochronology can take us back tho the last Ice Age in some parts of the worldletting us see what growing conditions were like from one year to the next. Mud and ice cores record conditions from across the globe (for instance, did you know you can plot the rise and fall of the Roman Empire in the west from lead concentrations in Greenland ice cores?), and the biological assemblages they reveal, as well as gas concentrations (and their isotopes) allow a remarkably clear view for millions of years.
Beyond that, you start having to be a lot more creative, but rocks are surprisingly well-written pages, and carry writing on them that can tell us a lot. Reading them is the trick, and some people have gotten very good at it. A quick ramble through climatology sites reveals a lot.
Certainly there have been rapid and radical changes in climate in the past. They are often associated with massive die-offs of populations and even whole families of life. Thats what my points 6 and 7 were about. I don't really care what caused the problem, except as regards ameliorating its effects and maybe preventing the problem from becoming worse. I don't want hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of people to suffer and die. I don't want our species to become extinct; I happen to like our species. I don't want us starved and flooded back to the Mesolithic, either.
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As to anti-intellectualism, the eggheads have had their chance. They've made a mess and march on freedom reducing platforms such as 'public health' and not offending anyone all the while making a bigger mess than before. I say it's time the eggheads step down and let joe sixpack run things for awhile.
Step down? Show me one in power. I can't really find much of a "mess" left by "eggheads". I do find an awful lot left by myopic corporations, petty-minded warlords, and close-minded clergy out to prop up their own power, who've had the power for as long as there's been power to be had.
And as far as the "don't offend people" platform, I can't see where that has been pushed by scientists. In fact the scientific method is more opposed to such things than most other professional codes of conduct, so again I reckon you're pointing the finger exactly the wrong way. Anyway, when did plain and simple good manners become such an affront to Nature?
Yes, any comment anywhere can lead to discussion. Differences in opinion lead to argument. Personally I find the exercise stimulating, since it encourages me to revisit my assumptions and reconsider my positions. Sometimes I've been convinced by a good argument and changed my mind. Sometimes I've simply become more certain that I was correct in the first place.
We're reasoning beings. It's what we do.
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History teaches us that men behave wisely once they've exhausted all other alternatives.
