Responding to Another blog

The following is entry is a response to the following blog and its subsequent comments concerning global warming skeptics.

http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/they-predicted-cooling-in-1970s.html

THE RESPONSE:

I first read this entry and comments a few days ago and have been waiting to respond so here goes.
I agree a lot with what Barry wrote and linked to, good job Barry. The idea of being "skeptic" is different from denial. As a chemical engineer, like one of the other commenters, I feel that some of the information being portrayed is overstated. There are several reasons to be "skeptical" of the data. One reason is people don't see the effects where they are. I live in the Ohio River valley and last winter was the first that I actually remember the river developing ice on it. I have only lived along the River for 7 years, but it was one of the coldest January's I remember, after living in the general area for 30 years, but not necessarily record cold. The second reason for being a "skeptic" is the lack of the scientific method. These people have come up with conclusions then gone back and cherry picked data to fit the conclusion and then developed the theory of GHG causing global warming. Sorry but that is completely bass ackward. That is why I agree with the other comment that says let's check back in 20 years and see what the REAL scenario is. Let's have some honest to goodness science. Let's design the testing, use a control like the space station or the Mars rovers for some inter-solar system control, and then make conclusions based on the data. If there is a rise in temperature in the controls and the Earth then guess what, the Sun is getting hotter. And the general scientific consensus is that our Sun will become a Red Giant someday and eventually the Earth will crash into the surface of the Sun. When that happens it is going to get pretty warm here, and it won't matter how times you rode your bike to the grocery store because GHG will be the least of the concerns. Actually there won't be any concerns because there won't be anybody. At least not on Earth.
The only way we can truly tell if temperatures are rising is by looking at independent research. Not data derived from people who are getting paid to find facts confirming global warming, because guess what if someone is paid to do a job more than likely they will do that job or else the person writing the checks will find someone to do the job. That said here is some independent data from my area over the last 27 years using the data available from www.weather.com. Over the last 5 years 18 (4.9% of days of the year)different days have had their highest temperatures set and 14 days (3.8%) have had record cold temperatures set. In the last 15 years the numbers go to 161 (44%) record highs and 144 (39.4%) record lows. Over last 20 years, the numbers are 253 (69%) highs and 238 (65%) lows. The most remarkable thing though is that there haven't been any highs or lows set in the last 2 years. If there was global warming wouldn't we be setting record highs every year?