After too many months of too much work and no spare time, the power is out, and now I have time to blog. Ah, the life of a scientist. We typically have more ideas than time. So for this blog entry, I'm making it quick. I'm just going to list 10 facts and let you figure out what it's about until I get to the end:
- The surface of the Earth is warming, primarily due to increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere prompted by human use of fossil fuels.
occurred between 13.4 and 14.1 billion years ago.
So are you annoyed? I admit it, I did try to go out of my way to find facts that would annoy people. These aren't even controversial facts. I've expanded the error bounds to the 3-sigma level. None of these even approaches the "OJ is guilty" or "tax cuts/increases have a predictable effect on the economy" level of uncertainty. Even though these are facts, many of them are facts that get used or denied for political purposes. And because it's an election year in the U.S.A., we tend to assume that any statement is a political statement. Every fact is a fact with a hidden agenda. And most are beside the point.
Politics are so polarized that even admitting to a fact is assumed to be a capitulation to the entire agenda of a political party. The alternative is denial of the facts, which is not something I'd recommend. Can't we agree on the facts first, and then talk about what, if anything, should be done about them?
The final fact is just there to put it all into perspective.