I Am Easily Confused.

I've been reading the new Michael Crichton book this week, State of Fear. The characters are all sort of cartoonish, but his books are always extremely fast paced, they're fun to read. In it, he basically looks at the theory of global warming, and he points out that there is very little evidence to support its existence. He cites numerous studies that show, in fact: many of the polar ice caps are thickening; sea levels aren't rising, and the earths average temperature is lower, if anything. I don't think his point is that it absolutely is a myth, but I think he's bothered by the extent to which climatology is politicized, and he's basically saying that the science is so extremely complicated (and new) that we really have no way of making accurate statements about the current stae of Earths atmosphere. In other words, when it comes to global warming, we just don't know yet.

I've never actually studied the issue, so I'm very interested in this viewpoint. I think that I have absorbed many ideas about the environment without actualy verifying them, and as a result I've basically accepted bad information. So, I don't automatically agree with Crichton's thesis, but the book has challenged my sense of what is going on. Which I love, I wish more things were challenging in this way. I always hear that as you get older you become more fixed in your viewpoint, and this is one of my worst fears, I'm really hoping that I can stay open to the world and to all of it's complexities. The day when I think, "Well, my beliefs are the right ones, I've pretty much got it all figured out"....this will be a sad day.

Thanks.