• ARGO 4900781’s LETTER TO BICKERING SCIENTISTS

Dear Quibbling Scientists,

… and the rest of you arguing over global warming. I have good news, and I have some bad news. Like it or not, consider what I’m about to disclose. I am an ARGO Buoy, my name is ARGO 4900781, and I was deployed on August 16, 2006 at Lattitude:31 (N) & Longitude: -55.555 (W). I am currently at Lat: 31.3815 & Lon: -64.2416. I am part of an oceanic data analysis program. There are about 3,000 of us traveling through the world’s oceans usually at a depth of about a mile, although we regularly go down to twice that depth before heading for the surface. We occasionally have to come up for air, I do this every 10 days, as I’m doing now. Not to breathe, mind you, it’s time for me to transmit some data sets to my satellite buddies who track me. While I may not be conscious, I’m fairly smart and rather complex. I have a computer, sensors, a transmitter, battery pack, and hydraulic pumps so I can ascend or descend on cue. We’ve been working 24/7 out here in cold and warm for five years, free-drifting and continuously gathering information about the state of the oceans, enabling extremely accurate profiling. I focus on things like temperature fluctuations, salinity, velocity, and pressure. This is data that will help you make conscious and conscientious decisions. Can you hear me? … Conscientious decisions. Haven’t you had enough of this raucous over terminology and rattling of sabers over who’s right and wrong about the future? These facts should put an end to some of the bickering. What? You don’t think we can hear? Let me tell you … you’re noisy, and I know why I’m here.

I am located in the Sargasso Sea, you know the sea that has no land bordering its periphery and includes the Bermuda Triangle? I don’t travel around much, unlike some of my friends, I circulate in an area of only a few hundred miles. Some of my buddies in the Pacific travel thousands of miles.

The good news is that the world’s oceans are not warming. Repeat, NOT warming. Things are stable down here. If anything, there has been an almost imperceptible cooling. We should know. My associates and I cover the whole globe in depth and at depth. If the cacophony I pick up when I reach the surface is to be believed, the globe is warming up, the oceans will rise to alarming levels, and those who can, will move upland to a Rocky Mountain plateau. Forget about it. Sure there are fluctuations on the surface. Endless complexities impact the upper layers of water, from salinity to cloud cover, to … nevermind, it’s really endless, plus there is both resulting effect as well as causal impact on weather and climate. The recursive loop looks more akin to a recursive pretzel. By the way, you currently have no computer models that reliably predict the future of the earth’s climate, so stop pretending. Common sense, however, can tell you the extent of the impact humanity’s footprint is having. You know that the excessive carbon with which you clog your atmosphere is akin to smoking yourselves into a cough. It’s just not good for you. It is evident that there is no recognition of any immanent threat presented by pollution to induce urgency of action.

The emotional fervor pitting scientists against scientists against pundit against politician against journalist against blogger is creating a whole industry with an eye on opportunity. That’s misleading. Even if it’s intention is to reduce your carbon imprint, launching programs from a flawed premise with dogmatic fervor will only lead to defective corrective actions. Be exceedingly careful that you do not set into motion programs that could lead to unnecessary catastrophes.

Now the bad news. Some of you should float out here for a month or two. Your antropogenic footprint is overwhelming. For example, ten days ago as I surfaced, a large plastic sheet wrapped itself over my antenna port. Which reminds me, do you folks have any idea what your untreated sewage is doing? You know, that human waste water containing microorganisms the size of basketballs, the heavy metals like the actinoids that you wouldn’t want your frozen eggs or sperm exposed to, pathogens such as hepatitis B, the lethal chemicals, and most stimulating of all the pharmaceuticals and narcotics excreted by everyone with access to a pharmacy or a hoody on two legs nervously guarding the street corner. The concentrations being pumped or drained out here are affecting every ocean on earth and all living organisms … and not in a good way.

Sometime in the recent past, you replaced animal power principally with energy sources that produce carbon dioxide. It’s understandable since oil and gas are readily available, easy to transport and you have devised endless ways of exploiting them. Convenience and availability are difficult to repudiate. Now would you please apply some of your technological prowess to the less expedient and convenient, or at the very least make a determined effort to contain their effluent discharge?

I have to go now. Time to drop to that zone where sunlight is only a faint glimmer. Time to go process more data so that you can make some educated decisions on how you’re going to reduce the sludge out here and up there.

Be well and do the right thing right.
Sincerely,
ARGO 4900781