Wondering about climate change
January 21st, 2008 by adminA story in Sunday’s Kitsap Sun about the local impacts of climate change has generated a large number of comments from readers — including some people who are suspicious about government motives regarding this issue.
I don’t really blame people for questioning the conclusions of climatologists. Climate models are complex and driven by assumptions as well as hard data. If we keep an open mind, we can examine the evidence as it comes out.
Personally, I’ve been considering ways to make climate science more accessible to nonscientists. I am not entirely comfortable that people must make a giant leap of faith to accept that climate systems are changing the Earth and that humans are probably contributing to more rapid changes. Perhaps later this year I’ll be able to write some stories that help people work through the complexities of the climate models.
I would welcome advice from anyone who has taken time to study climate change from an average person’s point of view. Maybe there’s a book I haven’t read that you can suggest. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group have generated a lot of information, but I fear it’s all too technical for most people.
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
January 21st, 2008 at 10:58 pm
It is really not difficult to understand, most of the technological doublle talk is there to mask the total lack of hard evidence that global warming is human caused. When I remember the extended cool weather we had this Summer, and the much greater than average ice and snow this Winter, I begin to doubt wheather global warming is happening at all.