What to think about, "Antarctic sea ice hit 35-year record high Saturday."

I accepted the majority scientific opinion about global warming some time ago. I would like not to believe it; it is inconvenient, but I have been persuaded by the evidence. Also, the consensus is overwhelming, and I am influenced by that. While I know scientist, like anyone else, can chase grant dollars and be influenced by the source of the funding, I cannot accept that global warming is all a scam and almost the whole world scientific community has been bought off. That just seems unbelievable. Also, those who accept global warming theory include all former Republican EPA chiefs and many Republican elder statement. While the bombastic talk show host disavow global warming, more reasonable Republican leaders and elder Republican statement accept it.

So, I "believe"  global warming is real. I know many people and certainly most pundits are so certain of their position on issues, they never have any doubt. If they believe something, they believe it 100%. They might as well say, "my mind is made up; don't confuse me with facts."  I am not so certain about a lot of things. While I think there is "black" and "white," I also think there are a lot of shades of gray. If I do not believe something to be true, it may be that I am only 49% persuaded. If I do believe something is true, it may be that I am 51% persuaded.

On global warming, sometime along about the year 2006, my position on global warming reached the 51% mark, having gradually climbed from about a 15% acceptance when I first learned of the theory. Somewhere along the way, I reached about an 85 to 90% acceptance. Accepting the science of global warming however did not make me fail to recognized that there were global warming alarmist. According to many celebrity and pop icons, we were supposed to all be dead from global warming by now. Also, accepting the reality of global warming did not lead me to embrace solutions that were "pie in the sky," "feel-good" measures that would do nothing to address the problem. I always thought we needed to use market-based solutions and cost-benefit analysis in addressing the issue. It seemed to me that the most effective global warming skeptic was no more a friend of global warming than those liberal true-believers who advocated income redistribution, abandoning national sovereignty, a massively more powerful government, windmills, and solar energy as a way of addressing the issue, while opposing natural gas and nuclear energy.

A couple years ago, along came the climategate scandal. We learned how the opinion of responsible scientist who were skeptical of global warming theory were marginalized and their views censored and we learned about, "hide the decline." My believe tumbled for for a while, maybe briefly falling back below the 50% mark. Since then, it has climbed back, but not to my previous high point. The fact that temperatures have not risen in the last seventeen years is one reason to increase my skepticism. Also, some respectable scientist are now saying the models may have overestimated the climates sensitivity to CO2 by as much as 30%.

Now comes a new revelation to make my global warming acceptance meter drop even more: Antarctic sea ice hit 35-year record high Saturday. 

To put that in perspective however, Arctic sea ice has been shrinking  for several years while the Antarctic ice has been growing. There was a reversal of the trend this year however and Arctic ice actually grew but not sufficient to make up for many years of a shrinking ice cap. There are theories that explain why all of this is happening. Nevertheless, this was not supposed to happen.

To view my previous post on the topic of global warming, follow this link.

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