Graph
Your source says:
The period 1980-98 was one of rapid warming – a temperature increase of about 0.5 degrees C (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). But since then the
global temperature has been flat
Yet a graph of the 5 year average shows that this is completely false. Although the rate of change has decelerated slightly, a strong upward trend
remains. In fact, historically speaking, a flat line would be wierd too, even if there was one. Look at the 5 year averages on the graph I provided.
There have always been periodic dips in the average due to natural variability. These have disappeared in the last 13 years due to acceleration.
Anti-warming propaganda focuses in on the outlier year of 1998 because it makes the recent numbers look less impressive, but the big picture remains
quite clear, and I will happily bet you that we will set at least one new record in the next 5 years.
If you want to argue for modern technology, let's introduce that modern technology to first world countries.
And when I say modern technology, I don't mean setting stuff on fire. Fire is not modern technology. The Chinese were drilling for and burning
natural gas 2000 years ago. The Internal Combustion Engine is a child of the 1700s and has existed more or less as we know it for 150 years, no matter
how much corn you try to shove in the fuel tank for the benefit of ADM.
60 years into the fission age, and less than 30 away from commerical fusion, there is absolutely no reason that there should be a single coal-fired
plant still operating in the United States.
Much less is there any reason I should be driving around the same technology that my great grandfather was tearing apart and improving on in his barn
way back in the early 30s, much less paying 3.20 a gallon to do so, when we've got electric technology that would kill internal combustion (and the
oil industry, and our
friends in Saudi Arabia)
tomorrow if it weren't for the fact that no serious automaker is building it on an
appropriate scale, and even have our choice of running it either on battery power or sans battery with a proton exchange membrane fuel cell.
(You know, hydrogen, that stuff that every single person in America has pumped to virtually every room in their home dirt cheap, but can't do
anything with because there's no gain in electrolyzing the water when you're using expensive, limited, and dangerous fossil fuels to generate the
power for the operation. That stuff that republicans ignore because they'd rather run their cars on low-grade bourbon so that they can funnel tax
dollars to agro-giants pushing a boondoggle with no future? I assume you've heard of it.)
You're dang right about it being time to interpret the global warming data and proliferate technology accordingly Mr Conservative. Now if you
wouldn't mind taking that message back to the party, I'd really appreciate it.