A Reader Shares His Doubts About Global Warming
Last week, I received an email from a reader in Estonia (I was just as surprised we were big in the Baltics as you) who indicated that he used to be a believer in the global warming phenomenon until he “read some quite believable articles suggesting that man made Global Warming is a hoax.” Two of the pieces the reader pointed me to were authored by Robert Brisnmead, who, evidently, is a devoted climate change denier. The third was a longer, more detailed piece.
The reader also passed along a summary of the take-home arguments he gleaned in his newfound readings that I thought I would share with you. I’m only passing these along because the reader seemed like a friendly chap, not because I buy it. Do with it as you please.
1. The “Greenhouse Effect” is a natural and valuable phenomenon, without which, the planet would be uninhabitable.
2. Modest Global Warming, at least up until 1998 when a cooling trend began, has been real.
3. CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas; 95% of the contribution is due to Water Vapor.
4. Man’s contribution to Greenhouse Gasses is relatively insignificant. We didn’t cause the recent Global Warming and we cannot stop it.
5. Solar Activity appears to be the principal driver for Climate Change, accompanied by complex ocean currents which distribute the heat and control local weather systems.
6. CO2 is a useful trace gas in the atmosphere, and the planet would actually benefit by having more, not less of it, because it is not a driver for Global Warming and would enrich our vegetation, yielding better crops to feed the expanding population.
7. CO2 is not causing global warming, in fact, CO2 is lagging temperature change in all reliable datasets. The cart is not pulling the donkey, and the future cannot influence the past.
8. Nothing happening in the climate today is particularly unusual, and in fact has happened many times in the past and will likely happen again in the future.
9. The UN IPCC has corrupted the “reporting process” so badly, it makes the oil-for-food scandal look like someone stole some kid’s lunch money. They do not follow the Scientific Method, and modify the science as needed to fit their predetermined conclusions. In empirical science, one does NOT write the conclusion first, then solicit “opinion” on the report, ignoring any opinion which does not fit their predetermined conclusion while falsifying data to support unrealistic models.
10. Polar Bear populations are not endangered, in fact current populations are healthy and at almost historic highs. The push to list them as endangered is an effort to gain political control of their habitat… particularly the North Slope oil fields.
11. There is no demonstrated causal relationship between hurricanes and/or tornadoes and global warming. This is sheer conjecture totally unsupported by any material science.
12. Observed glacial retreats in certain select areas have been going on for hundreds of years, and show no serious correlation to short-term swings in global temperatures.
13. Greenland is shown to be an island completely surrounded by water, not ice, in maps dating to the 14th century. There is active geothermal activity in the currently “melting” sections of Greenland.
14. The Antarctic Ice cover is currently the largest ever observed by satellite, and periodic ice shelf breakups are normal and correlate well with localized tectonic and geothermal activity along the Antarctic Peninsula.
15. The Global Warming Panic was triggered by an artifact of poor mathematics which has been thoroughly disproved. The panic is being deliberately nurtured by those who stand to gain both financially and politically from perpetuation of the hoax.
16. Scientists who “deny” the hoax are often threatened with loss of funding or even their jobs.
17. The correlation between solar activity and climate is now so strong that solar physicists are now seriously discussing the much greater danger of pending global cooling.
18. Biofuel hysteria is already having a disastrous effect on world food supplies and prices, and current technologies for biofuel production consume more energy than the fuels produce.
19. Global Warming Hysteria is potentially linked to a stress-induced mental disorder.
20. In short, there is no “climate crisis” of any kind at work on our planet.
Image: re-ality via flickr under a Creative Commons License
Apology: To discuss the delta heat energy balance caused by greenhouse gases on Earth from a scientific perspective requires the use of advanced mathematics and much discourse into Physical Chemistry. Therefore I am not going to counter any of the points made because my counter arguments will be wasted on both the deniers as well as supporters of Anthropologically induce global warming.
Rather I will resort to philosophy. Many if not most scientist in the world not only feel that the evidence supporting Anthropologically induce global warming is overwhelming, but that this warming will produce a mass extinction of fauna and flora. Note: we are a member of the Fauna population.
So here is the philosophical argument for the deniers:
What if you are wrong? Is it possible that you do not understand the science well enough to place yourself in the position of being a climate change expert. What if you are wrong, but you convince enough people to believe you are right that you lead to the lack of needed policy changes? What if because those policy changes don’t occur the Earth’s climate enters one of those worst case scenarios that some real scientist really honestly are scared may become reality?
I am a very strong believer in freedom of speech and would never suggest that a denier does not have the right to express his or her view points. But what if you are wrong? Think about it. Just let that possibility play in your head for a while.
Here are a few sources to check out proving the validity of the IPCC findings.
IPCC Funding
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles-appendix-b.pdf
IPCC Publishing Procedures
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles-appendix-a.pdf
I assume you all like to read “scientific” literature. I had trouble finding peer-reviewed articles that supported consensus from scientists about the claims in this article (besides those funded by Shell and Chevron, which does not define consensus, but minority opinion). The data used in this scientifically pathetic stream of burble (for example, that CO2 is lagging temperature change), was all gathered from the IPCC reports. This is because the IPCC assessment reports are a summary of all available peer-reviewed data (not necessarily funded by the IPCC). Saying that the IPCC science is worthless is like saying that 99% of the scientists on earth have not been using sound methods.
Temperature change and CO2 concentration in the atmosphere are correlated, not causal. It is a feedback loop that we admittedly do not fully understand, but know is linked. Up to 650,000 years of ice core data was used to draw this correlation. Another fact that we know from this ice core data: humans have changed the CO2 the atmosphere more in the last 200 years than any known fluctuation within a 10,000 year time span. Correlate that.
Hence, the difference between the vast majority of scientists on this earth and right wing conservatives that deny climate change: we absorb the information and make educated decisions rather than clinging to our bad choices in the face of concerning new data.
P.S. I love the archaic misogynist…Leigh. You really lend credence to your intelligence and your cause, my friend.
Sir number 19 is the most important of them all and the most telling. Liberals have run our western society since the 70s they are responsible for… Multiculturalism and Globalism which lead to Terrorism then on to the Police State we now live in. Liberals had to re invent for fear that the greater public would turn on them en mass. So that mental disorder (Global Warming) is nothing more than a smoke screen that they hide behind. Strange that GW Bush is the villian when he had nothing to do with the above. Strange that the Liberal solution (global warming, carbon tax, ect) is worse than the Liberal problem (terrorism, police state). Its your world Liberals but dont fool your selves for a second… Crashing our economy with your 2nd front (Environmentalism) because you cant face the fact that your policies failed. There are limits to what the public can tolerate and just like the French Royal family… You dont even see it coming.
So do step around the train wreck and blame it all on GW Bush then create a new fake problem, all to save your skin.
Global Warming? from a few warm years in the 90s? When its been cooling for the last decade! Carbon tax when we are in a recession. Same dead end sound bite crap that sunk our ship in the first place. But in the end I guess Im the scarry guy for peeking behind the curtain. For the record Im no fan of GW Bush, but I know a fall guy when I see one. What did you expect the GOP to do when the twin towers went down? form a daisy chain?
Global warming hysteria is indeed a mental disorder. Whether or not it is influenced by stress remains to be seen. There is global warming. There is also global cooling, and there is always climate change as a result of whatever happens to be going on at the time. Read the truth about the whole matter in this article.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html
It doesn’t matter if this list is true or false, as we (U.S., Europe, Canada, China, Japan, etc.) have to change to alternative energy solutions. Why? Because, it’s a national security issue for every developed nation. Just the U.S. sends between $500-700 billion a year to countries who actively oppose the 1st world. Yes, this includes all 1st world countries or countries trying to become 1st world.
What if we started a new industry in the U.S. that created $500 billion worth of jobs and kept that many here? That would be decent.
On top of funding our enemies and losing jobs, our dependence on foreign countries for energy essentially puts our economy hostage to their whims (1970’s oil embargo).
Now if you take into account that global warming is possible (I would say it is true, but for the sake of this argument we will say it is a 50-50 chance) and you take into account that it’s entirely possible we are running out of oil, even at a slow pace, then any intelligent person has a difficult time arguing against alternative energy. It’s time to put aside the crap ideology and get this problem fixed.
If not stopped, the global warming scam will enrich the scammers (Gore), increase the power of the U.N. and Marxists like Obama, and multiply poverty and servitude for the rest of us.
Believing that human activities can change the weather is like believing that the earth is the center of the universe. The earth is not the center of the universe.
More than 31,000 American scientists have signed onto the Global Warming Petition Project. The petition states, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate…” http://www.pr-inside.com/the-petition-contains-the-signatures-of-r613239.htm
It is CRIMINAL to force us to swallow the global warming hoax, which will increase unemployment, poverty and dependence.
It is criminal for beliefs to be espoused as fact in our day and age. Bring facts. For example, do a little research on the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM), which claims the 31,000 signature study, and you find the group is probably loaded with a few scam artists themselves.
The OISM formatted the report to make it look like the National Academy of Sciences published it as a peer reviewed journal article…it wasn’t. Scam artists?
They also fail to ensure all the names on the list are scientists. Basically, if you log on to their website you can sign it. Scam artists?
Also, their website links to a website that advocates creationism over hard science. Not scam artists, but there aren’t any facts here.
After saying all that it doesn’t even matter if global warming is real or not. See my post above.
[...] the scientist then realize that this new piece of information could fuel climate deniers’ increasingly limited arsenals, and somehow work to counteract that? By simply passing the new information along to policy makers, [...]