The Mad Sailor

Is global warming real? I don’t know! And neither does anyone else. I’ve listened to the arguments from both sides and neither has proven their case. The believers point to the “Hockey Stick” graph as proof of global warming. The non believers say they got the math wrong. Now as it turns out I know a bit about signal processing so I took a look at the problem. The raw data for the hockey stick came from temperature measurements, tree rings and ice cores. All of this data is dirty, suspect to say the least. So I created a dataset of pure temperature readings. I put in 100 years of “readings” with 20 degrees per day plus 20 degrees per year plus 2 degrees every 22 years (for sunspots) and .2 degrees over the entire 100 years for global warming. Guess what? I can’t make an instrument that can demodulate the .2 degree global warming data. It’s 40db below the “noise”. Now I’m not saying it can’t be done, just that I don’t know how to do it. This was from “clean” data. trying to do it from dirty data is an exercise in silliness. So I’m sceptical to say the least. Still, Greenland, Kilimanjaro, rising sea level …. something is happening.

Is global warming a problem? I don’t know! The believers say it’s the warmest it has been in 1000 years. So what! Has it ever been warmer? Nobody is saying. Why not? OK, I get it, some places will have a problem. If you are going to buy waterfront property, it better float. My heating bill should go down, but my air conditioning bill should go up. Good farmland will turn to desert, deserts will turn to oceans and new farmland will appear … somewhere. These are big changes, but don’t panic!

If it’s real and a problem, can I fix it? Nope! Not a snowball’s prayer in Hell! Here’s why. In the US there are now 300 million folks of the 6 billion folks world wide. Everyone, EVERYONE!, in this world wants to live the American dream and they are doing their best to do it. And if you don’t let them … forget about it. That means the world needs to find and burn 5 to 6 times the energy we are currently using. That won’t happen, will it? OK, then we have to become 5 to 6 times as efficient as we are now. Oops! That won’t happen either, will it? You know what’s left? We fight over what resources we have. I’m starting to feel better about not having kids.

And then! We are listening to the same folks that wrote the programs that predict next week’s weather. Last Sunday they said this Sunday will be 40 degrees. Today, Wednesday, it’s up to 54 degrees. And they’re not even trying to predict the wind. The media, just this week, apologized (in the weather guy’s name) for predicting a brutal hurricane season in 2006 that didn’t even happen. No one apologized for not predicting the 2005 season.

A final thought! Even if the believers are right about the temperature rising, are they right about carbon dioxide being the problem? I don’t know! That’s another one of those computer program thingys.