Sunday, August 12, 2012

"PETER C GLOVER" to receive NOBEL for 5th law of thermodynamics ?

GLOVER takes the Fifth
Peter C Glover, the well known evangelist, is said to be set to receive the Nobel Prize for Theology for formulating (stepping in for God) the Fifth Law of Thermodynamics : "Thou can not change the Climate, get over it".

Glover , like the rather more  illustrious Sir Charles Lyell , left a field he was good at (the law) to dabble at something he is terrible at (science).

Glover (not yet Sir Glover) is best known for his thesis that "Humanity can not change the Climate for good or for bad". Full stop.

Most critics of the theory of human-caused climate change at least allow change in the climate with sufficient inputs of extra or less energy : but they mathematically quantify these inputs to be at such levels that humanity as of yet simply doesn't have the means to generate them.

Prolonged shifts in the Earth's relationship, distance-wise, to the Sun, or sharp rises and falls in the energy output of the Sun are held by these critics to be big enough to cause the Earth Climate to change fundamentally.

This is a serious argument, a serious scientific argument, and the various sides argue over whether smaller changes in energy inputs (small enough for current humanity to evoke) are sufficient to evoke pronounced changes in the Earth's climate.

Glover does not make these sort of arguments - he is a lawyer by trade and so may be intellectually unequal to making logical rather than rhetorical arguments.

Fair enough.

But I do not believe that Glover's thesis rests on science at all : he does not qualify or quantify his argument with any caveats.

His law is a Law in the Mosaic sense : laid down on tablets as imperative commands.

Moses' tablet laws are different from both changeable laws of humanity in the court of law and in the court of science.

Legislatures bring criminal and civil laws in and out of existence daily.

Science Laws once judged fundamental, like the First Law of Thermodynamics which forms the intellectual underpinning (such as it is) beneath Glover's thin reed of theory, can and were demoted to mere 'derived laws'  , once the truly fundamental nature of the Second Law of Thermodynamics became apparent.

The Theology of Peter XXXXXIII

But Glover's Law that humanity never could, never can and never will be able to change the climate has a much more eternal ring to it.

Humanity may be the most powerful species on this rock, third from the Sun, but God in his wisdom has apparently not granted us the hubristic power to destroy the Earth.

As a Christian , don't I daily wish that it be so !

But I see no evidence that our species can't destroy our own nest and that, in fact, it is happily doing so, as I write.

Nor do I see any hand-waving and finger-pointing from Peter as to just what other species, then, caused the Ice Ages .

Perhaps it was the Lilies of the Field, who despite weaving and spinning not, are apparently a dab hand at hexing the weather patterns big time......

2 comments:

  1. Wow that was a long boring posting. And you did a great job of convincing me that man CAN change the climate for good or for bad. Not!

    Actually, after reading your post, I have no idea exactly what your point is. Wow.

    cheers

    ReplyDelete