Thursday, January 04, 2007

Global warming II

Another question I have for the "earth is warming" crowd is how do we know what the temperatures were a few hundred years ago, let alone thousands or millions of years ago? I think I know what they'll say: "We can determine the temperatures by looking at fossils or by how thick the rings are on trees or reading books and manuscripts that are available." But let's be honest here.... we can speculate or have a general idea, but no one can really know for sure just how warm or cold it was thousands of years ago. Even official U.S. records go back less than 200 years and that's a blip in the life time of the earth. There's likely been many cooling periods (ice ages) and just as many warming periods (ice melting ages) over the life of the earth.

One more question... scientist are always talking about the "average surface temperature of earth". How is that determined? Even if it's possible to get an accurate average temperature with current technology, how can we know for sure what is was thousands of years ago before the thermometer was even invented.

Maybe I've missed the boat or haven't read the right books. But it seems to me that if politicians and leaders in government want to set up extensive new laws and bureaucracies and change the way humans go about living, these type of questions should be answered. Maybe I should just read Al Gore's book.

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