There are a great many things that threaten ongoing large-scale human life on this planet. Really, there are. All you have to do is spend some time watching the Discovery Channel or any of its progeny, all of which seem to base their marketing strategy on propagation and exploitation of paranoia. What with American's ongoing fascination with morbidity, they seem to be doing okay. After all, why would people tune in to something as boring as a CNN report on dozens killed and a hundred thousands homeless from flooding in Brisbane? What people really want to watch is an analysis about how a planet-killing asteroid could be hurtling towards the earth this very moment at 9 billion miles an hour, poised to snuff out all higher life on this planet. Who cares about economic calamity in Europe or rioting in Tunisia when there's programming available about possible ways that the Mayan end-of-time prediction might come to pass next year. Never mind mudslides killing hundreds in Brazil, don't you know that the entire Yellowstone caldera is poised to blow, plunging the world into a century of darkness? And lets not forget about bird flu. And swine flu.
Of course, the prospect of cosmic, geologic, or viral calamity notwithstanding, it's safe to say that the greatest threat to ongoing human life on this planet is probably humanity itself. This brings us to my my personal favorite extinction myth: global warming. My favorite because it manages to do the absolute most with the absolute least of any secular disaster theory in human history, and because - given that it's based on human activities - it can actually be parleyed into a tool to control peoples' minds and/or activities. I'm sure you've heard the sales pitch: "YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND AND BELIEVE THAT THIS IS A PROBLEM!!!" This expression is almost always followed closely by: "DO WHAT I SAY, OR ELSE OUR CHILDREN ARE DOOMED!!!" In fact, the latter usually follows the former so closely that no verifiable or quantifiable scientific support is ever offered proving that the problem exists at any more than a hypothetical level. But we can't dwell on that now, we don't have time! To stave off the calamity looming in the next century, we need to get people toeing the line we set RIGHT NOW!
Ahhh, human nature at its finest.
Regardless of what pundits say, the only scientifically verifiable point about the cumulative effect of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere is that they have kept Al Gore socially relevant well past his use-by date, by offering the masses nothing more substantial than fear-mongering and portents of dread. Good on him for avoiding actual work by recycling the same tactics of just about every fire-and-brimstone religion/personality cult in human history. And he does score points for coming through with some fuzzy-science reason, rather than the traditional tidings of the Second Coming, pending race war, or opposing the New World Order. That some scientists are willing to say that his tidings of woe are scientifically possible sets him apart from Charles Manson or Jim Jones, even if it doesn't set him any higher than Charles Manson or Jim Jones.
Unfortunately, all signs point towards Al actually believing the bullshit he's spewing, and - equally unfortunately - the nature of Al's bullshit means that he's unlikely to do us the favor of trying to hitch a ride on the tail of Hale-Bopp (google it). Alas, and in the true spirit of his Democratic Party roots, Al is going to save us from ourselves, whether we like it or not. All that we have to do is pony up billions to support his programs, change our entire lives and economy to match his green utopia ideas/ideals, and acknowledge that he's right and everyone else is wrong. And how could he be wrong? He was the one that took the initiative in inventing the Internet, for Gods sake!
What a fucking douche bag.
As recently as 25 years ago, the scientific community was abuzz with the possibility of a coming ice age. Whoops. But trust them, they've got it right this time! After all, a newly completed study has found that even if all industrial emissions of greenhouse gases cease by 2100, earth's sea-level will rise by 13 feet by the year 3000! Never mind that the best we can manage is an educated guess as to whether we'll get rain or sunshine next week. Never mind that we have no means whatsoever to even estimate locations, magnitudes, or paths of hurricanes or tornadoes that might happen next year. Trust us when we tell you that we're going to be totally fucked in 1,000 years, UNLESS WE ACT NOW.
If you want some hilarious reading, google "Gore Effect." It turns out that there is a statistical correlation between Al Gore appearing at an area to address global warming, and that area immediately or concurrently suffering unseasonably cold weather. I'm not asserting that there is a causal link between the two. That would imply the work of a Higher Power with a truly divine sense of humor, a point I'll not trumpet, even though I happen to believe it.
So I'm not saying that there is a causal relationship between Al speaking and local cold weather following. I'm just observing that there is a statistically demonstrable relationship between the two. This is significant, since it's exactly those sort of statistical relationships that Al's minions rely on in creating their models and projections of future meteorologic trends and events. Nobody really knows how or why global weather works the way it does. Scientists just have documentation and equations which show that weather tends to follow certain trends, and that certain events tend to work (or at least portend) demonstrable changes on or in such trends. But if general statistical relationships can be relied on in forming weather projections, the Gore Effect (as such a relationship) indicates that we already have a solution for global warming. We just have to schedule more speaking engagements for Al, to enjoy the cold weather that tends to follow him. Reliance on the Gore Effect as a solution for global warming is about as scientifically supportable as asserting global warming as a realistic threat to humanity.
Science is a good thing, and can demonstrate all sorts of verifiable explanations for all sorts of observable events. But the fact of the matter is that when the goal is to assess actions and interactions of ANYTHING too large to be studied in the confines of a controlled lab environment, the greatest controlling force in most studies is the belief and expectations of whatever scientist (or other figure) is conducting the analysis. This is important to keep in mind whenever you hear hear analysis of weather, economics, politics, or relationships. In all of those areas, the interaction of the various forces drastically exceed our ability to comprehend the equation, much less interpret definitively the effects of changes in any single factor. While studies of weather, economic, politics, and relationships does enjoy status as sciences, there's a reason those fields are differentiable from fields like chemistry, physics, or any "hard" science where tests can be performed under controlled conditions. Absent the ability to test theories under controlled conditions, "sciences" are largely just educated conjecture based on statistical trends, rather than on demonstrable relationships.
Keep this in mind when reading the results of soft-science research studies. (Especially ones where the scientists proclaim that they found evidence to support their own pet theories, since such "studies" are almost always fudged to reach the conclusions the "scientist" wants to find.) Until human consciousness and intelligence grows large enough to encompass the equations as a whole, all those studies are just a step above astrology.
No denying the entertainment value, though.
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