April 15 2001 COMMENT The myth of global warming endangers the planet Melanie Phillips

Every age has a governing creed from which dissenters are branded heretics or enemies of the people. Once it was that God created the world. Next it was that man had to recreate the world as the workers' paradise. When communism imploded in the late 1980s another belief emerged to fill the gap - that mankind was destroying the world through global warming.

Anyone who questions the orthodoxy that the West's rising output of carbon dioxide will produce environmental catastrophe is branded as mad, bad or in the pay of the oil industry. Hence the hysterical incredulity which greeted President George W Bush's decision to abandon the Kyoto protocol which sought to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Now John Prescott and other ministers want to punish Bush by putting the special relationship with the United States into "deep freeze".

There is no conclusive evidence to support the global warming theory. Scientists are deeply divided over it. Most independent climate specialists, far from supporting it, are deeply sceptical. A growing body of rigorous science is showing that many of the claims made to support the most apocalyptic scenarios are demonstrably false.

Take the latest. Two teams of American oceanographers have reported that the oceans have got hotter. From this finding, they claim proof of man-made climate warming. This extrapolation is absurd; and yet precisely this reasoning accounts for much of the warming calculation behind Kyoto.

Buckets of seawater are hauled up and their temperature is taken, which is then used as a proxy for the temperature of the air. But water is not the same as air. And, surprise, surprise, other scientists have now discovered that sea temperatures have risen faster than those of the air. This means that these seawater calculations have overestimated the rate of global warming during the past 20 years by one third. When air alone is measured, the past two decades are revealed actually to have cooled.

Is it credible that scientists can be so silly? There is much, much more. We are told that the ice sheets are thinning, proved by the tremulous discovery of stretches of water in the Arctic. But there is always water in the Arctic summer. In fact, the extent of Arctic ice has remained almost unchanged over the past 20 years, and in the Antarctic sea ice has actually increased by about 1.3% per decade.

We are told that the seas are rising and will soon engulf land from Samoa to Swanage. But this is based on surveys of only some seas. There is, in fact, a great mass of contradictory sea level data. Around southern Australia, for instance, there was almost no rise in sea levels for the whole of the past century.

Perhaps most eye-popping of all is the claim that the 1990s were the warmest decade in history. This completely ignores the medieval warm period. In 1200, Europe was 2°C warmer than it is now. This was followed by a cold period known as the little ice age, which lasted until the latter part of the 19th century. So it's hardly surprising that the climate has warmed since then.

The historical evidence suggests that our current rate of warming is no big deal and is part of the natural cyclical pattern in which the Earth has periodically warmed and cooled. Many scientists take this view.

Yet Sir John Houghton, former head of the Meteorological Office and now co-chairman of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) whose report formed the basis of the Kyoto protocol, has said there are no more than 10 active scientists in the world who disagree with the notion of human-induced climate change.

But there are thousands of scientists who disagree with the prediction of climate catastrophe caused by human agency and who are utterly dismayed by what they see as the falsehoods of Kyoto and the IPCC report. Many have signed statements saying so; these are never reported. And some on this sceptic side are extremely eminent indeed.

Dr Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the foremost experts on atmospheric science, says there is no evidence that greenhouse gases could disrupt the climate. In a withering put-down of the "absurd" Kyoto protocol, he describes it as "very much a children's exercise of what might possibly happen", prepared by "a peculiar group" in the IPCC almost all of whom have "no technical competence".

Dr Jan Veizer, the renowned geologist, has produced a definitive reconstruction of the world's climate history, which says there is no correlation between cold and warm periods and low and high levels of carbon dioxide. Indeed, there were long periods when rises in carbon dioxide were accompanied by a drop in the average temperature.

Some scientists say this report alone sounds the death knell for the man-made global warming theory. Certainly there are scientists on the other side of this argument. The authors of the IPCC report said there was a "discernible human influence on climate change".

So shouldn't we adopt the precautionary principle just in case? But precaution against what? The physicist Sir Fred Hoyle and the mathematician Chandra Wickramasinghe argue that carbon dioxide needs to rise to prevent another ice age. This may be eccentric, but how can ordinary people decide what calamity to be terrified of?

All one can do is apply some common sense. The climate predictions (and even some of the alleged historical "facts") are the product of computer modelling. But this modelling interpolates hypotheses into a prophecy. This produces a guesstimate which merely replicates a premise, however flawed.

Moreover, climate change is made up of a vast number of interrelating factors, to which carbon dioxide is but one minute contributor. These factors produce a myriad feedback effects which computer modelling is too crude to acknowledge.

The IPCC report itself admits its own inadequacy. Because there is no straightforward cause and effect in climate change, it says, "the prediction of a specific future climate is not possible". It admits that, of 12 factors thought to influence climate change, nine are very poorly understood. It also admits that certain key changes indicating global warming have not occurred.

But these scientific caveats are overwhelmed by politics. The text is studded with weasel words and phrases - "very likely", "best estimate", "simulations", "scenarios", "assumptions" - to support the dire predictions it says it cannot make. So a combination of flawed modelling, buried caveats, weasel words and bad science history has produced a report more akin to a religious icon than a piece of scientific reasoning.

The science of global warming has been suborned by politics and ideology. It was hijacked by those who wanted a new stick with which to beat western capitalism, America and globalisation. It is the green version of the big lie.

The great danger, as several despairing scientists point out, is that this will so disillusion people that it will damage the real and pressing agenda to steward the Earth properly: to reduce pollution, to conserve energy and, above all, to adapt responsibly to inevitable change.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&group=alt.global-warming&safe=off&ic=1&th=bc869a0ebc9ebae9&seekd=899974896#899974896

-- The Myth of Global Warming (caves@are.us), April 18, 2001

Answers

Drat!

-- Cave Man (caves@are.us), April 18, 2001.

So then why did Bush promise to limit Carbon dioxide emissions during the election?

-- (PromiseMade@Promise.Broken), April 18, 2001.

The thing that constantly leaps out at me regarding this debate is that there are fanatics on either side who need to be right, in order to justify a point - to bolster an ongoing personal political agenda.

The "opponents" to global warming seem to be losing the battle, slowly. They are correct in pointing out that there is much to still be debated, however, and much research to be done. We don't want to shackle American or global industries, and then find out 15 years from now that it was based on a leap to judgement and not on valid evidence.

But it seems that the evidence grows every day.... If it helps, I would liken this evidence of human-influenced global warming to the evidence that industries and governments were making progress on Y2K remediation, when the hardcore Y2K activists kept insisting that they weren't. They just had too much invested, personally, in the debate to be rational. Any "authorities" that backed their claim, even if they were in the minority, were held up as True Believers.

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.people), April 18, 2001.

"So then why did Bush promise to limit Carbon dioxide emissions during the election?"

Because, like algore and Nader, he's just another lousy politician out to win votes. You think your electric bills are high now - just wait till the government slaps on a bunch of "global warming" surcharges on your bill (which the BIG EVIL CORPORATIONS just pass onto the consumer anyway, but hey aren't taxes good for us?).

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), April 18, 2001.

But it seems that the evidence grows every day

On the contrary, evidence against this theory is growing faster. The trouble is a lot of the media have bought the "conventional wisdom" of global warming and are blind to evidence which suggests otherwise.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), April 18, 2001.

"So then why did Bush promise to limit Carbon dioxide emissions during the election?"

Because, like algore and Nader, he's just another lousy politician out to win votes.

Thanks. That's all I needed to hear.

-- (PromiseMade@Promise.Broken), April 18, 2001.

Buddy - not true. I don't like it any more than you, but we have to face facts here.

The "researchers" who are providing "evidence" that there is no correlation between human generated emissions and changes in ocean and air temperatures are the minority, and it seems like they have agendas. Or sponsers.

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.people), April 18, 2001.

Bemused,

Sorry, I disagree. The "researchers" in the IPCC is the group with agendas and sponsors who are pushing the global warming theory.

What gets me is how so many people think that a majority of scientists support the theory when the fact is the majority of scientists don't have the expertise to even have an opinion.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), April 18, 2001.

"...(which the BIG EVIL CORPORATIONS just pass onto the consumer anyway, but hey aren't taxes good for us?).

-- libs are idiots "

This is a classic example of repuganism. What does it mean? Nothing is what it means! It means that the person who posts under the name "libs are idiots" is a fucking repug trying to tie things together in an oxymoronic way. I'd say the fucker is pretty good at it! (He also lights his farts contributing to global warming in his own way)

-- Pinky (Fuck the@repugs.com), April 18, 2001.

Pinky -- I think there's one thing you missed about the global warming debate. Methane, a major component of farts, is a greenhouse gas. More so than CO2. Thus, lighting one's farts will decrease global warming, not increase it.

Gotta get your facts correct, dude!

-- E.H.Porter (just.wondering@about.it), April 18, 2001.

I thought global warming was a lie? Here dude stand in this room. Close the door and let me fart. hmmmm, the temperature did not go up. I fart again but this time I light the fart. hmmmm, the room temperature is going up! (thus the contribution to, in this case a warmer room) You understand Pinky?

-- Stu Dicker (dicker@good.com), April 19, 2001.

The facts are what they are. Where is the poll that shows the "majority" of scientists believe that human causes have resulted in climate changes? The facts are that the dems simply want to use global warming scare tactics to find a new taxing source - taxes on energy sources - and who pays??? Well it's not going to be those rascally rich I can guarantee it. There's no way in hell the powers that be are going to do ANYTHING to impact their standard of living. These taxes get passed on in the cost of the commodity - energy in this case, and the middle class gets screwed.

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), April 19, 2001.

This thread is long on opinion, but short on data. Can anyone provide some research, either for or against global warming?

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), April 19, 2001.

Here ya go Ape-man:

http://www.john-daly.com/

http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/issue.htm

http://www.junkscience.com/

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), April 19, 2001.

FUN FACTS about CARBON DIOXIDE

Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.

India's population of one billion people produces more CO2 by breathing than the entire United States produces from all it's coal-burning powerplants.

At 360 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.

CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient, not a pollutant, and all life-- plants and animals alike-- benefit from more of it. All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon dioxide.

CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans-- the great retirement home for most terrestrial carbon dioxide.

If we are in fact in a global warming crisis, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on global climate!

Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective

-- Cave Man (caves@are.us), April 19, 2001.