Opaque Lucidity

Long Time Now Time

Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard has an interesting column out about arctic sea ice and the polar bear. We will, it is believed, begin to experience ice-free summers at the North Pole within most of our lifetimes. This is seen as a major threat to the bears as it deprives them of much of their habitat.

I need to do my own research on climate change, but it's difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff in terms of scientific reality versus political agenda. With this in mind, I have several fundamental questions with regard to our long-term understanding of climate:

1. How long have human beings had the ability to measure and track temperature accurately over multiple years in remote places such as the North Pole, Antarctica and mid-ocean?

2. How long have human beings had the ability to measure deep current ocean temperatures accurately?

3. How long have human beings had the ability to accurately measure carbon emissions?

4. How long have human beings had the ability to accurately measure the emissions coming from Al Gore's 3-monitor setup? And how long before the working man can afford that type of screen real estate?

These are the questions which make for sleepless nights, friends.