My Take on Global Warming

Here are the reasons I'm a skeptic of the "global warming" (a.k.a. "anthropogenic climate change") movement.  This is condensed and modified from an article by Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace and outspoken critic of anthropogenic climate change.  The "threat" of catastrophic climate changes is routinely, daily, incessantly used as a sledgehammer to drive political and social agendas from energy to international treaties to religious freedoms to military strategies.  I'm skeptical of any scare tactics, especially when they come from individuals or organizations that stand to gain power or money from the proposed "solution," but beyond that are scientific shenanigans that ought to give any reasonable person pause.

1.  The global warming proponents have blind certainty they can predict the global climate with a computer model.  I don't buy it because, to paraphrase Wesley in The Princess Bride, "I've known too many computer models."  The interrelated atmosphere, hydrosphere, tectosphere, and sun are too complex a system for any computer model to predict into the future.

2.  The idea that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil fuel emissions will heat the Earth to catastrophic temperatures is preposterous.

In fact, the Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels revolutionized civilization.

Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced for the umpteenth time we are doomed unless we reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to zero. Effectively this means either reducing the population to zero, or going back 10,000 years before humans began clearing forests for agriculture. This proposed cure is far worse than adapting to a warmer world, if it actually were to come about.

3.  By its constitution, the IPCC has a hopeless conflict of interest. Its mandate is to consider only the human causes of global warming, not the many natural causes changing the climate for billions of years. We don’t understand the natural causes of climate change any more than we know if humans are part of the cause at present. If the IPCC did not find humans were the cause of warming, or if it found warming would be more positive than negative, there would be no need for the IPCC under its present mandate. To survive, it must find on the side of the apocalypse.

The IPCC should either have its mandate expanded to include all causes of climate change, or it should be dismantled.

4.    Climate change has become a powerful, misused political force for many reasons. First, it is universal; we are told everything on Earth is threatened. Second, it invokes the two most powerful human motivators: fear and guilt. We fear driving our car will kill our grandchildren, and we feel guilty for doing it.

Third, there is a powerful convergence of interests among key elites that support the climate “narrative.” Environmentalists spread fear and raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom; the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; science institutions raise billions in grants, create whole new departments, and stoke a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; business wants to look green, and get huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise be economic losers, such as wind farms and solar arrays. Fourth, the Left sees climate change as a perfect means to redistribute wealth from industrial countries to the developing world and the UN bureaucracy.

5.  CO2 isn't so bad.  You're breathing it in and out right now.  We are told carbon dioxide is a “toxic” “pollutant” that must be curtailed, when in fact it is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, gas and the most important food for life on earth. Without carbon dioxide above 150 parts per million, all plants would die.

Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will continue to produce more if carbon dioxide keeps rising.

6.  We have no proof increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the earth’s slight warming over the past 300 years.  In fact, I (Thinkin' Man) believe it is a logical impossibility to separate natural from anthropogenic climate variability.  Further, there has been no significant warming for 18 years while we have emitted 25 per cent of all the carbon dioxide ever emitted. Carbon dioxide is vital for life on Earth and plants would like more of it. Which role of CO2 should we emphasize to our children?

7.  CO2 has never been a climate drive in the past -- in fact, the data show increased CO2 follows behind temperature rises, even at much higher CO2 levels than today.  Why would it suddenly become THE driver now?