The God Particle
Global warming is a misnomer as bad a choice of terminology as whatever idiot labeled the Higgs Boson, “The God particle.” “Idiot,” yes, I refer to those who picked the name as IDIOTS because it terribly upset the bible thumpers and they must have known it would – it doesn’t take much – for absolutely no reason and probably was done on purpose but without any practical reason since it simply reflected the importance of the Higgs field to the universe. It said nothing about WHO or What, if anything created the Higgs Boson. Why not just call it the “Higgs” boson and avoid alienating 70% of the world’s population?
I suspect the origin lies with some reporter looking to stir up problems where none existed.
Highly Misleading Phrase “Global Warming”
In the same way, a simple but highly misleading phrase, “global warming,” has come to represent a highly complex alteration in the environment which simply causes slightly higher temperatures everywhere on average (if one of your feet is in a bucket of boiling water and the other is in a bucket of ice then “on average” you are comfortable so “average” is a term which should be reserved for scientists and mathematicians who actually know what it means.)
I often wonder if a few scientists looking to make trouble do these things on purpose to make everything more difficult for the rest of us who just want to get on with practical science, triggering the moronic fight over whether Global Warming is “caused” by human action such as burning coal.
Political Debates
Of course that argument entirely misses the critical point just as the vast majority of “political debates.” It doesn’t matter in the slightest what “causes” global warming, the only important question is, would limiting human contribution to the problem be a good thing or a bad thing?
Some of us think that global climate change is probably a bad thing if only because we have no idea what will actually happen and feel that changing a planet where most people can currently be fed would be an insane idea no matter what the possible “cause.” Personally I would try to fix it rather than argue whether it was caused by this or that, or just a natural event.
I think if you ask anyone in NYC or the Jersey Shore (which is really a small town in rural Pennsylvania) if it would be a good idea to fight global warming no matter whether it is all simply due to Mother Nature or Not might be a good idea, I bet upwards of 70-80% would agree it is a good thing to try and prevent rising sea levels whether it is due in part to a coal burning plant in PA, or China, or Russia, or not. What if stopping burning carbon fuels would help prevent GW even if they aren’t the actual “cause” since if it is a natural event there is nothing else we can do to prevent it.
What Global Temperature Alterations Really Mean
What global temperature alterations really mean is that we are due for wildly unpredictable climatic variations (such as flooded subway tunnels in NYC.)
For this winter we are looking at a very different year than last when, here in West Central PA we got a couple of inches of snow all winter but this year have over 13-inches before the start of the new year.
Just for those who prefer NOAA to the Old Farmer’s Almanac I thought I should present links to this year’s scientific forecast.
NOAA sees this year as relatively normal.
Temperature and precip maps for the entire year are found at:
Have a happy new year.
