February 28, 2010
(The Swamp) -- First of all, let's every one of us thank our God, however we may see that magnificent Person, that so few people were killed in the unbelievable 8.8 earthquake in Chile.
But it's not the Earthquake that we should be focusing on - it's the "tsunami that failed" which we need to examine.
Were we not told with some certitude that a tidal wave of up to three meters high had resulted from the earthquake? Then why, when it raced across the Pacific Ocean, did it not get there on time and why was it only a few inches in Hawaii and a meter in Japan?
The lamentable fact is that we really don't know what causes tsunamis.
It's not that we don't have some really wizzo theories such as the "landslide displacement ratio" theory, the "aqueous subduction" (backwash creates frontwash - think of what a canoe paddle does in a "J" stroke) theory, or the "direct kinetic" (the one they used to predict the current tsunami) theory. The problem is that each theory has real difficulties when it comes to scientific scrutiny. On the other hand, it's totally cool that most of the evidence is accessible to almost anyone.
Please understand, this is not a pointing of fingers. Earthquake Tsunami science is still in the "best guess" phase. That means a lot of what we think is right could be just plain wrong. Scientists know and admit that fact. The bad guess that occurred Saturday could be evidence that the "landslide displacement ratio" theory is a better guess. Only time will tell. Scientists will labor. Techies will gather data. Better guesses will be made. Earthquake Tsunami science will progress.
On the other hand, climate science, which is even less understood, depends on incomplete data which only a few have access to and is heavily influenced by politics. Yet we have people today, one of our Senators, in fact, who actually believes that the science is complete enough to spend billions of dollars on a plan to permanently change the weather worldwide, if it works. Isn't this just a little crazy? Certainly, this kind of hubris needs to be avoided by persons of even limited intellect. The problem, of course, is that people of limited intellect don't usually recognize that they are dumb.
This is why so many people in our state don't understand the reason Lindsey Graham has embraced this love affair with bad science. He certainly isn't dumb, and he certainly has access to all the info we journalists do - especially since the East Anglia email leaks.
He KNOWS the Chinese cheat and lie. Why then would he believe their scientific data? He KNOWS that the Russians love to mess with our heads. Same question. He also KNOWS how inefficient NASA is and how political NOAA is, and that official thermometers are reading temperatures from places that FAVOR hotter than actual temperatures. Heck, there are several blogs run by reputable reporters and scientists dedicated to just this part of the data! We've all read them. Why hasn't HE?
He says he "believes" climate change (read "man-made global warming" [anthropogenic terrestrial temperature positive fluctuation]) is real. The problem, as we have noted here, before, is that he has no consistent data on which to base his belief. His belief. It almost sound like religion, doesn't it? And yet, his belief is not even based on trust, but hope. And, from his past statements, he appears to be a truer believer than Torquemada, the Inquisitioner, was in a corrupt Roman Church.
It's understandable, his wanting to cooperate in a bi-partisan way. He wants the moral suasion that cooperation brings so that when he proposes something, he will have friends on the other side, as well. It's even understandable, his position on amnesty for illegals. We don't agree with any of it, but it IS understandable, and he's never lied about any of it, as some more conservative state politicians have done about some other things.
But this is different.
Senator Lindsey Graham has no moral, ethical, rational, legal, or scientific reason for believing something which has so much false, corrupted, and incomplete data behind it, as does man-made global warming. There is no sensible cooperative advantage to promoting stupidity, either.
He used to read many of these columns. Here's hoping someone will tell him about this one. Then, he can easily say he changed his mind, when he discovered, after reading, he was duped. And he wouldn't be lying.
- Dick Anderson
