Got off my bum and updated the webcam page. Not that I ever remember to turn them on; but there are now cams for the office, laptop, and work.

I’m also a little tired of the constant yes-it-is, no-it-isn’t back and forth over “global warming”. Science should never bow to the whims of politicians on either side. The axiom of the scientific process is that you test your hypothesis to understand how something works; if the results consistently defy your hypothesis, you throw it out in favor of what the evidence tells you.

Unfortunately, in the political world, you find someone who’ll make the evidence fit the hypothesis you want. Or, more commonly, just look at a tiny slice of the evidence that supports your position and hype the crap out of it. Get it on the internet; after all, if it’s on the web, it’s true. Sorry, I think I’ll listen to the scientists who are honestly evaluating the data… at least, the ones who aren’t shilling for one side or the other. The honest scientists will say “Here’s our data, here’s the trends we’ve noticed, here they are on a millennial scale and here’s what we expect to happen.” You’ll also notice that most of them are cautious about causation… the why and how of these events is extremely complex and no honest scientist can state with certainty that X caused Y. I don’t look for scientific analysis from Rush Limbaugh or Al Gore.

But what can be stated is that there has been a global rise in temperatures within the last 1000 years. Wait, I already hear anguished gnashing of teeth. Yes, that 1000 years is a drop in the bucket on the timeline of the planet. It may very well be a normal cyclic change that has nothing to do with human intervention. But that’s unimportant. What is important is how does this change affect humanity now? What can we expect for our modern civilization? Certainly the planet will still be here. I expect that the worst doomsday scenario will still see humans surviving and possibly thriving- we’re almost as hard to kill as a species as cockroaches thanks to this grossly bulging frontal lobe. But what will the costs to our society be?

Pretty damn drastic. And whether or not it’s caused by human action is pretty insignificant. Even if it is, we don’t understand how; and any corrective action on our part is based on guesses and speculation and may ultimately make things worse- or not. We simply don’t know.

But if I hear another group of politically polarized idiots arguing yes-it-is, no-it-isn’t over a topic that they’re woefully, blissfully, and willfully ignorant of, it’ll take a lot of prozac to prevent my removing them and their potential offspring from the debate forever.