Monday, May 12, 2008

A new perspective on anthropogenic global warming

Although this article may seem like an interruption in the "solar system colonization" series, you will see that this actually fits in very well.

In evaluating available temperature data, a new correlation has been found. In the graph to the right (click to enlarge), you will see the world population (human only, not including animal life) plotted (in red) along with the global average temperature anomalies (in blue) from approximately 1850 until the present day (the data is available at the Climatic Research Unit and the UK Met. Office Hadley Centre web site). The temperature data represents the "anomalies" vs. the arithmetic mean over 1960 - present (2007). The population data (available at the US Census Bureau web site) is the world population divided by 10 billion (i.e., plotted in tenths-of-a-billion) in order to fit on the same scale plot as the temperature anomaly data. Note the correlation - this is remarkable evidence in support of the conclusion that the world is being overpopulated, leading to rising global temperatures. (This theory, overpopulation leading to rising global average temperature, has recently been proposed by Ted Turner, who completed part of the requirements for a degree in economics, thus qualifying his statements on the topic.) This is in contrast to the many available charts of CO2 level vs. global average temperature, which do not show a high correlation (the reader is left to research this topic on his own).

The area of the graph marked with the yellow arrow corresponds to roughly 1960, where the average rate of temperature rise seems to outpace the population rise. Researching this time period, we noticed that the World Wildlife Fund was started in 1961. Part of the work of this organization is to help prevent extinction of endangered species. It would seem that, as the human population increases, the population of other species tends to decrease, thus the total global population (human and non-human) remains relatively stable. However, the WWF (note: this is the World Wildlife Fund, not the World Wrestling Federation) seeks to offset this natural balance in the overall world population by preserving the species that otherwise would have dwindled or gone extinct. This leads to even more "creature-heat" being supplied into the environment, thus causing the global average temperature to increase even more.

We need to find a solution to the earth's overpopulation problem; this leads to the series on solar system colonization. As previously mentioned, prior Venus inhabitants apparently also had a runaway population issue, combined with the desire to preserve all species of creatures on the tropical paradise (at the time) planet, and failed to realize the fate they were going to endure. We should look into these possibilities to alleviate anthropogenic global warming:
  • find alternate places to house the excess population (such as colonies on other bodies throughout the solar system; it has not been studied whether this would lead to "solar system warming" or not)
  • reduce the population (we refer the reader to the Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" - apparently he saw this issue back in 1729 and came up with an ideal solution which also offers a solution to world hunger issues; this would preclude the cannibalism that Ted Turner says will follow once the population and temperature increases reach catastrophic levels, in essence being a "controlled cannibalism" in order to make population adjustments in an orderly fashion instead of out-of-control, willy-nilly fashion)
  • disband the WWF (World Wildlife Fund; however, in this case, the suggestion may also apply to the World Wrestling Federation, as their actions tend to cause high levels of energy expenditure that may be impacting the environment negatively as well; in fact, the WWF - World Wrestling Federation - has been known to impact the environment negatively even without taking anthropogenic global warming into consideration - we'll consider this in a future article); the reduction of the animal population in opposition to the increasing human population should help to reduce the impact on global average temperatures; however, we would need to catch up on nearly 50 years of sub-optimal animal extermination very quickly, and even surpass the intervening numbers of animals that were saved since we need to reduce the global average temperature; endangered species would be the first targets since they would be quick to eliminate and thus mitigate their reproduction as well, while the remainder could be more quickly reduced in numbers
Note: the animal elimination method would not impact the global food chain, since we would not seek to eliminate animals that are farmed for human consumption (chickens, cows, pigs, fish, crabs, dogs, etc.). For those who are concerned about the potential downfall of species elimination, when all the "fur" animals (seals, rabbits, foxes, etc.) are extinct, humankind would wear either textile or leather coats. Fur would become a highly-valuable commodity, of course, and this would open a new market for commerce and trade.

However, whichever method we take, we need to decide and move quickly before the earth turns into Venus II.

This is not intended to be an invitation to eradicate species of creatures from the earth, although the author wouldn't mind if mosquitoes and tics were eliminated (we can send them to Jupiter if someone really doesn't want to make them completely extinct - and whether it's the person or the pests we send to Jupiter, I don't really care). It is intended to show how easy it is to correlate data that doesn't necessarily indicate a causal relationship, which unfortunately seems to be the case with a lot of the touted "anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming" data these days. Yes, the earth is warming, but it's not due to anything that humans have done - we're on the upside of an ice-age, so temperatures will tend to warm; in addition, the sunspot cycles recently have been above average, which tends to correlate with periods of increased temperature as well, and the recent low sunspot activity seems to have coincided with a sudden reduction in temperature over the last year. Don't let anthropogenic global warming activists scare you - or tell you what you think - go out and look at the data yourself and make up your own mind. We hope to bring you more data in the future regarding this hot topic (sorry, but yes, that was an intentional pun).

3 comments:

Marie said...

No time to research such issues. I'll just read what they think. Read what you think and decide what I think. Isn't that the popular way to do it anyway?

Tony M said...

No, I think the popular way is to repeat whatever was last said in the media as truth. And in our interconnected information age, that "truth" goes out far and quickly. Ugh.

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