Global Warming

We have friends from up North who think that our living in Florida is tempting the rising oceans to flood our home and wash me and my lovely wife out to sea. She is pretty sure that Global Warming will one day bring our demise. In their opinion my generation had much to do with all the so-called warming. Somehow, living in the woods of New Hampshire we had unusually large carbon footprints and somehow laid waste to the countryside and atmosphere. I admit I had 4 chainsaws when we decided to move to Florida, and I had used them regularly clearing land, making firewood, and burning brush. So apparently I need to accept some of the blame. But now, all of a sudden, the reports of the impending demise of our planet happily may be premature. I note that the arctic ice has begun to refreeze and at least some of the reports of whole earth melting and a great flood caused by rising oceans are now subject to additional discussion. So who’s right? Well, the bulk of climatologists are convinced that the release into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide by the combustion of the fossil fuels oil, coal, and natural gas in recent years has accelerated the warming of the Earth to what could be a dangerous level in the near to mid future, there are increasing signs that these dire warnings have been somewhat overblown. By far the most complete data on climate parameters is obtained by meteorological satellites. And when reviewing the data, it is important to distinguish between weather and climate data. Weather data are, by their very nature, concerned with relatively short-term predictions-days or at most weeks. Climate data, on the other hand, involve parameters that range over years to decades and even to centuries and geological eras. Although satellites have been in use for only a very limited time in geological-era terms-about a half-century-there are other data on climate variations that go back many millennia. A large, vocal, and growing community of scientists and policy analysts has been questioning the climate-change orthodoxy for a number of years. They insist that many of the so-called signs of warming, such as arctic ice depletion and extreme weather disturbances, are not necessarily caused by human-made greenhouse gases but by natural meteorological phenomena, and that the global push for 'green' energy technologies such as wind power and solar farms is both unnecessary and economically disastrous. Although certainly controversial, these views are indeed supported by geological data over the millennia, which suggest that the current indications of global warming have been encountered often in past eras, and perhaps more important, that not only do satellite data not provide the essential verification of the computer models (whose predictions on temperature and ocean level rise vary from year to year by several hundred percent) but they also indicate that although there are regional variations, there has actually been no global warming (or cooling) since 1998. Germany and the UK have recognized the negative economic consequences of subsidizing limited green-energy sources and ignoring newly discovered large fossil-fuel resources such as shale oil and natural gas. And a recent bill introduced in Congress (H.R. 2413) calls for NOAA to reduce funding for climate-change research in favor of improved short-term weather forecasting. So my friend's concern of rising water levels seem to be unwarranted and now I can feel comfortable selling Florida homes to people who—I know in my heart—will not drown in their sleep due to glacier melting. Florida really is a pretty nice place to live, especially if you are retired, and so when our friends from up north are no longer worried about the oceans rising—that makes it all the sweeter. Dane Hahn is a real estate professional serving Charlotte and Sarasota Counties. You can reach him at 941-681-0312 or by email at dane.hahn@gmail.com. See him on the web at www.danesellsflorida.com