Scientists Find the Kahunas to Agree with Sarcastic Test Guy

I was reading in one of the on-line periodicals that I frequent and found this article on Global Warming, and I must say that it fairly warmed my heart (what's left of my heart, at any rate).

I know that everyone is probably fed up with this whole subject, but I'm going to talk to myself about it anyway, so fair warning: what follows are my long-since established thoughts on the topic of global warming.

Is global warming "real"? Sure seems to be.
Is man THE reason for global warming? Pft...who really knows?

What got me right from the start on this topic is the assertion that humans are responsible for the current trend of global warming. CFCs, ozone, blah, blah, blah. At the same time, there is no end of evidence that the world was a much warming place when the dinosaurs walked the earth (palm trees in Alaska type warm). I immediately wondered, if humans are responsible, on whom do we blame THAT period of global warm? That one lasted for millions of years.

Also, we know that there have been several Ice Ages. According to UnmaskingEvolution.com and Wikipedia, there have been at least five major Ice Ages in the earth's past. So if there were five distinct periods of global cooling, then logic dictates that there have also been at least five distinct periods of global warming too.

I like this particular graphic, which I took from Wikipediea:

This only a graphic of the last five million years, of course; my understanding is that during the dino times (which, by the way, was the name of the newspaper that was being published during the Triassic), the world was warmer than the beginning of this graphic.

It's interesting to note that as we get closer and closer to today, according to this chart, the variation in period-on-period temperature seems to swing more and more widely. And for the most part, these swings have been going on with no humans on the planet.

I watched a documentary some time ago (within the last year or two) that talked about the "Little Ice Age". This documentary started its tale sometime around 1,000 AD (or ce, whichever you prefer). During the time  from about 950 AD to 1250 AD, the world seems to have been a warmer place. I recall them stating that there were at that time grape vineyards in England (significant only because grape vineyards don't grow there today because the climate isn't warm enough). Wikipedia refers to this as the "Medieval Warm Period".

CFCs? Too much hair spray? Automobile emissions? Bah, Humbug!

What followed the MWP was the "Little Ice Age". Here's a Wikipedia article on that too. Very cool fact: the year 1816 is known as "the year without a summer" because frost and snow were reported in New England and Northern Europe during the months of June and July.

Of course, following the end of the Little Ice Age (mid 1800's, by most accounts), there must also have been a trend for global warming. I, for one, have never seen snow in my neck of the woods in June OR July.

So here we are talking about mere decades of global temperatures trending warmer than the previous several decades. On a glacial time scale, I don't think that we've got enough data to state what's going to happen. Not with any certainty.

Is this trend caused by man's presence on the planet? Maybe. Maybe not. I certainly don't think that we've been helping the cause for the last century.

The earth's cooler periods are generally caused by excess dust of one kind or another in the atmosphere. Generally, either from a sizable volcanic eruption, or many lesser such eruptions, or a meteor event. We haven't really had any of these events in a long while. Yes, there have been many eruptions, but none large enough to have the sort of impact that we're talking about.

Now, I'm also of a mind that many of the initiatives that have been undertaken in the name of "fixing" global warming should probably be done anyway. The energy saving measures, leaning towards solar energy over fossil fuels, cars with much better mileage or that run off of more benign sources such as Hydrogen...all are great things that we should be doing anyway. Not necessarily because I think that these are the causes of global warming, but because we ought to be taking care of our planet.

We did not inherit the earth from our fathers, we borrowed it from our children.
~Chief Seattle

Potpourri

So I spent some time recently trying to convince a coworker that Adam and Eve were obviously the world's first Irish. I argued that the fruit of knowledge can only have been a potato: you see, what knowledge-gathering device has ever been better than the eye? And potatoes are chock-full of eyes.

As I drive along the highways, I like to keep my eyes peeled for hawks sitting up in the trees, or flying along on a zephyr. If I see them, I will say "Good morning" or "Good evening". Out loud.

When I was a wee lad, I mis-heard my father talking about the sound barrier. I heard him say "sound burier". For years I pictured an old fellow up in the clouds who would bury any sound that made it up that high. When he told me that the sound burier was broken, I felt bad for the old bloke.

Years ago, when the Mrs. and I were still dating (I was then still lulling her into my inescapable web...gotta love the Pope), we were babysitting for the neighbors, who had a young girl and a young boy. The girl asked me to check her closet for monsters before she went to bed. I did this, set her up in her bed, and on the way out the door said as casually as possible, "Everybody knows that monsters live under the bed anyway."

Later, when we were preggos with our eldest, we were at the OB's office "checking things out". I walked into the exam room while the doctor's assistant was amidst the privates. She asked me if I was the father. My response: "Well, I'm her husband at any rate".

Do you suppose that you get heavier when you fart?

How about when you burp?

I wonder if Weight Watchers has a point value for burps and farts. Is it a negative value?

Have you ever been standing up, riding in a bus when the driver had to jam on the breaks? You know how everyone in the bus lurches forward at that moment? Very dangerous thing, that. That's what really happened to the dinosaurs. When the meteor hit, the earth stopped it's ~1,000 MPH rotation, and all the dinosaurs were hurled forward, relative to the earth, at that speed. Most of them died when they crashed into hills, mountains, or each other. Some small flying ones died because they were hurled into space, others because they became beached, having been thrown up out of the water and still others drown because they were land-dwellers that were hurled into the oceans. Many recovered, and upon standing up to see what the hell just happened, the earth suddenly lurched back into its normal rotation and the surviving dinos were all thrown BACKwards at ~1,000 MPH. Most of the survivors of the stop died when the earth started up again. This left those very few that remained bereft of sufficient members of the opposite sex of their own species, and in-breeding began to devolve them back into fish.

What happened to all the pet rocks? Did they die or something? I haven't seen them in decades.

How hungry was the first person who ate a lobster?

How many people had to die eating blowfish before the safe preparation of them was determined?
"Nope, Hiroshi died."
"Huh...well, I did this one differently, feed to to Keiko."
"Keiko's dead."
"Ting-Chow...!"