Global Warming

Global warming, climate change or (as the scientists call it) "temperature anomalies") is a complicated business. Imagine trying to measure the near-surface air temperatures and ocean water temperatures all over the world and average them out to account for night vs. day and summer vs. winter. Even in my home town of Denver, Colorado, the apparent average temperatures dropped 3-5 degrees when they moved the official weather station from the old airport to the new one.


By the time you're through compiling all this stuff, you have a set of numbers that almost no one can understand. On top of that, they usually report, not an actual temperature, but the difference from an abitrarily-chosen index -- the average of the 1951-1980 period.


As a "numbers guy", I can guess why they do it. There's so much variability from place to place and season to season, that the variation disguises trends. But, the average person is left asking, "What does it really mean?" Let's try to get to the bottom of that.


Now, some dispute that it's even true that the earth is warming up (We got all that snow this winter!) or that the cause is mostly human (Maybe, the sun is getting hotter). Or, they distrust the data because some of the scientists acted in petty ways, trying to squelch critics. (Any college logic student would label that an "ad hominen" argument.) Gosh, there are even some who maintain that the earth is only thousands -- rather than billions -- of years old.


I'm not in those camps; I look , for example, at the shrinking of mountain glaciers & polar ice caps and conclude something's going on that we need to work on. Unfortunately, I also conclude it may already be too late to prevent severe damage. Global political urgency to take uncomfortable actions doesn't match the problem.

Has the world been warmer in the distant past? Yes, of course. Do we want to go back to those times? Almost certainly not.

If you thnk the East Anglia crowd might have been fudging the data, what is your opinion of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies? (You know NASA, the agency that figured out how to put men on the moon and weather satellites in space. ) Well, they're the source for the original data, which you can see for yourself at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ . Simply look at the graphs (or the tabular data) and you'll notice a few things:

• Yes, climate runs in cycles -- of about 7 to 11 years per cycle -- but
• There is a steadily increasing temperature trend; since 1910, each minimum of a cycle is higher than the one before;
• A big jump occurred between about 1910 and 1943, roughly consistent with use of internal combustion engines;
• The temperature was fairly stable between 1951 and 1980 (Thus, its choice for the index.) and
• An even bigger jump has happened after 1978 -- perhaps related to global industrializtion.

We've only been able to measure carbo dioxide (a greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere since about 1959. The place chosen for measuring is Mauna Loa, an extinct volcano standing high in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That graph, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere, shows a logarithmic increasing trend of CO2 in the air. This pattern, too, is consistent with the temprature increases.

Put it all together and it looks beyond a reasonable doubt that the world's climate is getting warmer and that much of this situation is human-caused.

But, global warming may now be a freight train running out of control with the throttle down. It also seems certain that -- even if we could reduce greenhouse gases going into the air today -- they would linger and cause more warming in coming decades. As the Arctic permafrost thaws, it releases methane, another greenhouse gas. The polar bears, I fear, are doomed.

Should we give up then and resign ourselves to our fate? Absolutely not! Serious problems need serious action. We may yet save ourselves from the worst of the crisis.

Character vs. Disease

This musing is sparked by George Will; he recently wrote a piece for the Washngton Post titled, "Cure for Character?", taking off on the soon-to-be-published revision of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) -- the catalogue that standardizes psychiatric diagnoses.

Mr. Will doesn't like the DSM having categories such as "antisocial personality disorder", "temper dysregulation disorder" and "histrionic personality disorder". He fears that by making these things diseases, a person is absolved of the responsibility to behave in socially-appropriate ways. Of course, Mr, Will, a political conservative, would object; these go straight to the heart of what William F. Buckley once defined as the difference between liberals & conserviatives: "Liberals believe in the perfectability of humankind; conservatives don't."

It's not that I totally disagree with his central point: If we are merely products of bio-chemical processes in our heads, where is the place for free will? If acting like a jerk is a disability, do the rest of us have to put up with jerks?

But what a psychiatrist means by these diagnoses is something more than "people-abuser", "short fuse" or "drama queen". We all know those personality types (and avoid them if we can). A pyshchiatrist encounters them when the phenomena described have become severe; either the person seeks treatment or is brought invountarily to it. Even the seeking of treatment is often less voluntarily than the seeker wishes; it's often a last resort -- after what AA calls "hitting bottom".

Not all in the world of psychiatry are comfortable with the DSM; some worry "whether the disorders it defines are actually real conditions in people in the real world, that can be consistently identified by its criteria." (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders) On that score, I'll vouch for the reality of these disorders. And, we shouldn't confuse the signs and symptoms in the DSM with underlying causes; DSM focuses on the former by design, admitting that we have a very limited unsderstanding of the pathologies involved.

We can probably agree that some people characteristically behave in antisocial ways, that it's an aspect of their personalities, and that some carry it to extremes. Similarly with short tempers and histrionics. If the shrinks have noticed too & catalogued it, we should be grateful that their world matches ours. Now, we can say not only "He's crazy." but just how he's crazy.

Why blog?

For years I’ve resisted the blogging fad. It seemed so, well, narcissistic and the world doesn't need much more of that. Why should anyone else want to read my rants?

But, lately, I’ve come to believe that a thoughtful & intelligent person, such as myself, might have insights or perspectives that were worth recording. Perhaps, setting down some of these musings and coming back to them later would help in developing a longer-term and sounder philosophy. If others chose to glance at them, that is all right too.

So, I (and you too, dear reader) set out on this journey. Where it will take us no one knows. Let’s hope it’s someplace good.

We're bound to make many stops along the way -- life, politics, sailing, genealogy, etc., etc. Road trip, Yay!
-rt_/)