Take Me Back Tuesday: GLOBAL WARMING CORRAL

[LawDawg]

BY THROUGH WITH YOU, I MEAN I AM THROUGH ATTEMPTING TO DEAL WITH YOU....NO MORE COMMENTARY BUT I WILL CONTINUE TO POST EVIDENCE TO EVIDENCE YOUR IGNORANCE...

Evidence goes both ways I guess...

There is No Global Warming
There is no global warming. Period.

You can't find a real scientist anywhere in the world who can look you in the eye and, without hesitation, without clarification, without saying, kinda, mighta, sorta, if, and or but...say "yes, global warming is with us."

There is no evidence whatsoever to support such claims. Anyone who tells you that scientific research shows warming trends - be they teachers, news casters, Congressmen, Senators, Vice Presidents or Presidents - is wrong. There is no global warming.

Scientific research through U.S. Government satellite and balloon measurements shows that the temperature is actually cooling - very slightly - .037 degrees Celsius.

A little research into modern-day temperature trends bears this out. For example, in 1936 the Midwest of the United States experienced 49 consecutive days of temperatures over 90 degrees. There were another 49 consecutive days in 1955. But in 1992 there was only one day over 90 degrees and in 1997 only 5 days.

Because of modern science and improved equipment, this "cooling" trend has been most accurately documented over the past 18 years. Ironically, that's the same period of time the hysteria has grown over dire warnings of "warming."

Changes in global temperatures are natural. There is no proof that temperature is affected by anything that man has done.

In fact, recent severe weather has been directly attributed to a natural phenomenon that occurs every so often called El Nino. It causes ocean temperatures to rise as tropical trade winds actually reverse for a time.

The resulting temperature changes cause severe storms, flooding and even draught on every continent on earth.

It's completely natural. El Nino has been wreaking its havoc across the globe since long before man appeared.

How about the reports that the polar ice cap is melting?

Well, yes it is. In fact, it has been for about a million years or so. We are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North American and Northern Europe.

There's at least one environmentalist, named Al Gore, who is panicking over the possibility that we may soon lose Glacier National Park in Montana because the ice is melting.

One hates to tell him that we've already lost the glacier that used to cover the whole country.

Perhaps he'll want to start working for new regulations from the Interior Department to begin immediately restoring this lost historical environmental treasure. Re-establishing a sheet of ice covering the entire continent would certainly serve to stop mining, timber cutting and urban sprawl.

The truth is, someday humans may be able to take tropical vacations at the North Pole - and it will be perfectly natural.

Yet our world is being flooded with the dire predictions of Global Warming.

We are being warned of killer heat waves, vast flooding and the spread of tropical diseases. Ocean levels are rising, they say. America's coast lines are doomed, they tell us. Hurricanes and tornadoes have already become more violent, we are warned. Floods and droughts have begun to ravage the nation, they cry.

Any change in temperatures, or an excessive storm or extended flooding is looked upon as a sure sign that environmental Armageddon is upon us. Diabolical environmentalists are using the natural El Nino phenomenon to whip people into a Global Warming hysteria.

TWO KINDS OF SCIENTISTS

We are assured by the White House that scientists everywhere are sounding these warmings and that we may only have one chance to stop it.

Well, as the debate rages, we find that there really are two kinds of "scientists."

There are those who look at facts and make their judgements based on what they know.

Their findings can be matched by any other scientist, using the same data and set of circumstances to reach the same conclusions. It's a age-old practice called peer reviewing. It's the only true science.

And then there are those who yearn for a certain outcome and set about creating the needed data to make it so. Usually you will find this group of scientists greatly dependent on grants supplied by those with a specific political agenda who demand desired outcomes for their money.

Let's just take NASA, for example - the most trusted name in American science.

A lot of NASA scientists have fallen into this trap. Environmental science has become the life-blood of the space program as the nation has lost interest in space travel. To keep the bucks coming, NASA has justified shuttle trips through the use of earth-directed environmental research. And the budgets keep coming.

At the same time, many of NASA's scientists come with a political agenda in great harmony with those who advocate the green agenda. And they're not above using their position to aid that agenda whenever the chance is available.

This was never more clearly demonstrated than in 1992 when a team of three NASA scientists were monitoring conditions over North America to determine if the Ozone layer was in danger.

Inconclusive data indicated that conditions might be right for ozone damage over North America, if certain things happened.

True scientists are a careful lot. They study, they wait and, many times they test again before drawing conclusions.

Not so, the green zealot. Of this three-member NASA team, two could not be sure of what they had found and wanted to do more research.

But one took the data and rushed to the microphones, with all of the drama of a Hollywood movie, announced in hushed tones that NASA had discovered an Ozone hole over North America.

Then Senator Al Gore rushed to the floor of the Senate with the news and drove a stampede to immediately ban freon - five years before Congress had intended - and without a suitable substitute. He then bullied President George Bush to sign the legislation by saying the Ozone hole was over Kennebunkport - Bush's vacation home.

Two months later NASA announced, on the back pages of the newspapers, that further research had shown that there was no such damage. But it was too late. Remember that when you have to buy a new air conditioner or refrigerator for no reason other than your freon has run out of the old one.

FLAWED COMPUTER MODELS

Then there are those computer models. Night after night Americans watch the local news as the weatherman predicts what kind of a day tomorrow will be. These meteorologists, using the most up-to-date equipment available, boldly give you the five-day forecast.

But it's well known that, even with all of their research and expensive equipment, it really is just a "best guess." There are just too many variables. If the wind picks up here it could blow in a storm, if the temperature drops here it could start to snow. The earth is a vast and wondrous place. Weather does what it wants.

Yet those who are promoting the global-warming theory have the audacity to tell you they can forecast changes in the global climate decades into the future.

The truth is computer models are able to include only two out of 14 components that make up the climate system. To include the third component would take a computer a thousand times faster than we now have. To go beyond the third component requires an increase in computer power that is so large only mathematicians can comprehend the numbers.

Moreover, even if the computer power existed, scientists do not understand all the factors and the relationships between them that determine the global climate.

So it's an outrage for Al Gore, Bill Clinton and the Sierra Club to tell you that Global Warming is a fact and that we Americans must now suffer dire changes in our lifestyle to stop it.

SCIENTISTS ARE NOT ON AL'S BAND WAGON

And so too is it an outrage for Al Gore to tell you that most true scientists now agree that global warming is a fact.

What he doesn't tell you is that almost 500 scientists from around the world signed the Heidleburg Appeal in 1992 just prior to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, expressing their doubts and begging the delegates not to bind the world to any dire treaties based on global warming. Today that figure has grown to over 4000.

He also doesn't tell you that recently a Gallup Poll of eminent North American climatologists showed that 83 percent of them debunked the global warming theory.

And the deceit knows no bounds. The United Nations released a report at the end of 1996 saying Global Warming was a fact, yet before releasing the report two key paragraphs were deleted from the final draft.

Those two paragraphs, written by the scientists who did the actual scientific analysis said:

1. "none of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases."

2. "no study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to ...man-made causes."

Global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the people of the world - bar none.

THE CLIMATE CHANGE PROTOCOL

Those who have been fighting against the green agenda have been warning that modern-day environmentalism has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting the environment.

Rather it is a political movement led by those who seek to control the world economies, dictate development and redistribute the world's wealth.

They use the philosophical base of Karl Marx, the tactics of Adolph Hitler and the rhetoric of the Sierra Club.

The American people have been assaulted from all directions by rabid environmentalists.

School children have been told that recycling is a matter of life and death.

Businesses have been shut down. Valuable products like freon have been removed from the market. Chemicals and pesticides that helped to make this nation the safest and healthiest in the world are targeted for extinction.

Our entire nation is being restructured to fit the proper green mold. All of it for a lie about something that doesn't exist.

But the lie is about to grow to massive proportions --- and the game is about to get very serious indeed.

In December of this year Bill Clinton will travel to Kyoto, Japan to sign a legally-binding United Nations treaty called the Climate Change Protocol.

The sole argument for this treaty is that Global Warming is a fact and we must take severe action to stop it.

Right now the Clinton Administration is bombarding the airwaves with the sales pitch. Conferences are being held in cities across the country. Special reports, magazine articles and documentaries are all being used to pound home the message - global warming is here - we must stop it.

But the most offensive assault on the expression of free thought by the American people, as the Administration drives to sell you this snake oil, was committed by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. Babbitt said that anyone opposed to the fight to stop Global Warming was "unAmerican."

He accused those opposed to the Climate Change Treaty of engaging in a "conspiracy to hire pseudo scientists to deny the facts." So now, according to Babbitt, to disagree with the Clinton Administration is tantamount to treason.

In fact the Climate Change Protocol is a legally binding international treaty through which signing nations agree to cut back their energy emissions to 15 percent below 1990 levels. And the treaty says this goal is to be accomplished by as early as the year 2010.

That means that all of the energy growth since 1990 would be rolled back, plus 15 percent more in just twelve years.

Yes, there are negotiations, debates and arguments taking place over the exact terms of the treaty as we speak. Perhaps the final version won't be so severe.

But it doesn't matter. Such a massive disruption in the American economy, particularly since it has nothing to do with protecting the environment, will devastate this nation.

To meet such drastically-reduced energy standards will, in the short run, cost the United States over one million jobs. Some estimate it will cost over seven million jobs in 14 years. If the treaty sends the economy into a tailspin, as many predict, it will cost even more jobs.

It will cost the average family $1,000 to $4,000 dollars per year in increased energy costs. The cost of food will skyrocket.

It has been estimated that in order for the United States to meet such a goal the U.S. gross domestic product will be reduced by $200 billion - annually.

To force down energy use the Federal government will have to enforce a massive energy tax that will drive up the cost of heating your home by as much as 30 to 40 percent.

In all likelihood there will be a tax on gasoline - as high as 60 cents per gallon.

There will be consumption taxes and carbon taxes.

The purpose of these punitive costs is to drive up the cost of modern living in order to force you to drastically change your lifestyle. That is the diabolical plan behind this restructuring scheme.

Every single product that is produced with the use of energy will increase in price. Including items like aspirin, contact lenses and tooth paste.

Yet just recently Bill Clinton said that compliance with the treaty would not hurt the economy. He said he can "grow the economy and do right by the environment."

The truth is, to date, the Clinton administration has refused to release an economic impact analysis of the effects of the treaty.

But a leaked study by the Department of Energy's Argonne Laboratory finds that the treaty will cripple six U.S. industries including paper, steel, petroleum refining, chemical manufacturing, aluminum and cement. That about sums up the economy.

When Clinton is through complying with the treaty you may find yourself sitting in a dark house after lights have been ordered off early in the evening, unable to drive your car because of gas shortages, unable to walk to the shopping mall because stores will be ordered closed after dark, even if you have a job and money to spend.

GLOBAL RAID ON AMERICAN WEALTH

But perhaps you still are not convinced. Maybe you still cling to the idea that such drastic action is necessary - that our president and the UN delegates are really in a panic over global warming and are trying to find a solution.

Then ask yourselves why the treaty will only bind developed nations to its draconian emission levels.

You see, only developed industrial nations will be bound by the treaty.

Undeveloped Third-World nations will be free to produce whatever they want. These will include China, India, Brazil and Mexico. And guess what? 82% of the projected emissions growth in coming years is from these countries.

Now ask yourself, if the Climate Change Protocol is all about protecting the environment - then how come it doesn't cover everybody? The truth, of course, is that the treaty is really about redistribution of the wealth.

The wealth of the United States is and has always been the target. The new scheme to grab the loot is through environmental scare tactics.

If, today, you were to attend a UN session on the Climate Change Protocol you would find yourself in a discussion with excited delegates from Third-World countries. They would make comments to you like, "when the technology transfer takes place my country will begin producing this or that item."

Translation - when the United States is stupid enough to fall for this scheme, the third world will take up the slack and get rich.

And international corporations, who owe allegiance to no nation, will bolt America and move their factories, lock, stock and computer chip, to those Third-World countries where they will be free to carry on production.

But that means the same emissions will be coming out of the jungles of South America instead of Chicago.

So where is the protection of the environment? You see it's not about that - is it?

Still not convinced? One more thing. Hidden in the small print of the treaty is a provision that calls for the "harmonizing of patent laws."

Now, robbing a nation of its patent protection is an interesting tactic for protecting the environment, don't you think?

CAN IT BE STOPPED?

Bill Clinton, pushed by Al Gore and the massive green lobby, is determined to sign that treaty. The war has been engaged.

Industry is finally beginning to wake up to the terrifying threat of the green monster that it helped to create. For the past three decades industry has given into every outrageous green demand. And it has fueled the monster by filling green coffers with massive tax-deductible donations. Now industry finds itself trapped.

But more frightening is the fact that many prominent proponents of property rights and limited government still fail to see the danger in the treaty. Many say the Senate will never ratify such a treaty.

They point out that, in a vote of 95-0, the U.S. Senate rejected in a "non-binding" resolution the Climate Change Protocol. That overwhelming vote, they say, will stop Clinton in his tracks.

That resolution was presented by Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. He, along with Congressman John Dingle of Michigan have led the opposition against the treaty. Republican leadership, so far, has been silent.

It is, of course, commendable that Senator Byrd and Congressman Dingle have taken the lead to do "something" to protect American interests. But both of them are established liberal Democrats, who have based their opposition solely on the fact that only industrial nations are tied to the treaty.

That's not fair, they say, and so they oppose the treaty - "as now written." Apparently they are taking the stand that if America must be enslaved, then it's only fair that the rest of the world share our misery.

Not once have they said the whole concept is wrong. Not once have they challenged the validity of the science that is based on the supposed fact of global warming.

Is this then the wall of defense that we are to hide behind? Are we now to entrust the very future of our Republic onto the shoulders of Senator Byrd and Congressman Dingle? That appears to be the current wisdom of our leaders on Capitol Hill.

Wary Americans, of course, know what will happen next. The story is all too familiar. Very soon Clinton will summon Byrd and Dingle to the White House and offer them a compromise. Then everyone will smile for the cameras and the Republicans, in the spirit of bipartisanship, will give away the store. In fact, that process has already begun.

So Bill Clinton is moving full-speed-ahead with his plan to travel to Kyoto, Japan this December to sign the Climate Change Protocol. When he does, and after the Senate has ratified it, the final blow will have been struck.

The United States of America will begin a long, agonizing decent - strangled by its own hand.

The question now is; can it be stopped? And more importantly, will we even try.$ e target. The new scheme to grab the loot is through environmental scare tactics.

[Hammer]

UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS
http://www.ucs.org

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE
http://www.aaas.org

SIGMA XI, THE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH SOCIETY
http://www.sigmaxi.org

OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY
http://www.ornl.gov

NOAA
http://www.noaa.gov

NASA
http://www.nasa.gov

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
http://www.epa.gov

[Po Monkey Lounger]

Yes, fly the friendly skies to New York City to our seminar, emitting more carbon and other greenhouse gases in that one flight than an entire rural community of steak eating, belching, farting, wood burning, grilling, car racing, Mississippi cattle ranchers emit in a year. But, don't feel guilty about it, because we are going to teach you a cool new system that allows you to alleviate your guilt, become "green" without any personal sacrifice on your part, and make lots of money to boot. You can even buy carbon credits at the seminar and go home feeling just capital about yourself ---- resting with the peaceful slumber of an Al Gore disciple, knowing that somewhere in the world, a small band of normally ill-tempered pigmees will be planting trees, saving rainforests, holding hands in unity, and enjoying a coke and a smile. I know what you're thinking. This utopia sounds too good to be true, doesn't it. Well, it probably is, but the beauty of this system is that there are no checks and balances or audit controls. It doesn't really matter if the pigmees plant the damn trees or not, or whether they survive, that the trees will not start absorbing carbon for at least a century, or that they will emit even more net carbon into the atmosphere if they prematurely die. No. No. No. What is important is MAKING MONEY. And we are going to teach you how. There is a sucker born every minute, and we will show you how to take advantage of this modern day equivalent to a miracle cure elixir craze. Mo money, mo money, mo money.

[JJ McGuire]

Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?
By Timothy Ball
Monday, February 5, 2007

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was one of the first Canadian Ph.Ds. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.


What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat? It would probably be the most important piece of news in the media and would generate a lot of debate. So why is it that when scientists who have studied the Global Warming phenomenon for years say that humans are not the cause nobody listens? Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on?

Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.

No sensible person seeks conflict, especially with governments, but if we don't pursue the truth, we are lost as individuals and as a society. That is why I insist on saying that there is no evidence that we are, or could ever cause global climate change. And, recently, Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. So how has the world come to believe that something is wrong?

Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. "It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species," wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.

I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.

Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

No doubt passive acceptance yields less stress, fewer personal attacks and makes career progress easier. What I have experienced in my personal life during the last years makes me understand why most people choose not to speak out; job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent.

I once received a three page letter that my lawyer defined as libellous, from an academic colleague, saying I had no right to say what I was saying, especially in public lectures. Sadly, my experience is that universities are the most dogmatic and oppressive places in our society. This becomes progressively worse as they receive more and more funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint.

In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?

Personal attacks are difficult and shouldn't occur in a debate in a civilized society. I can only consider them from what they imply. They usually indicate a person or group is losing the debate. In this case, they also indicate how political the entire Global Warming debate has become. Both underline the lack of or even contradictory nature of the evidence.

I am not alone in this journey against the prevalent myth. Several well-known names have also raised their voices. Michael Crichton, the scientist, writer and filmmaker is one of them. In his latest book, "State of Fear" he takes time to explain, often in surprising detail, the flawed science behind Global Warming and other imagined environmental crises.

Another cry in the wildenerness is Richard Lindzen's. He is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology - especially atmospheric waves. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has held positions at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. Linzen frequently speaks out against the notion that significant Global Warming is caused by humans. Yet nobody seems to listen.

I think it may be because most people don't understand the scientific method which Thomas Kuhn so skilfully and briefly set out in his book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." A scientist makes certain assumptions and then produces a theory which is only as valid as the assumptions. The theory of Global Warming assumes that CO2 is an atmospheric greenhouse gas and as it increases temperatures rise. It was then theorized that since humans were producing more CO2 than before, the temperature would inevitably rise. The theory was accepted before testing had started, and effectively became a law.

As Lindzen said many years ago: "the consensus was reached before the research had even begun." Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.

Meanwhile, politicians are being listened to, even though most of them have no knowledge or understanding of science, especially the science of climate and climate change. Hence, they are in no position to question a policy on climate change when it threatens the entire planet. Moreover, using fear and creating hysteria makes it very difficult to make calm rational decisions about issues needing attention.

Until you have challenged the prevailing wisdom you have no idea how nasty people can be. Until you have re-examined any issue in an attempt to find out all the information, you cannot know how much misinformation exists in the supposed age of information.

I was greatly influenced several years ago by Aaron Wildavsky's book "Yes, but is it true?" The author taught political science at a New York University and realized how science was being influenced by and apparently misused by politics. He gave his graduate students an assignment to pursue the science behind a policy generated by a highly publicised environmental concern. To his and their surprise they found there was little scientific evidence, consensus and justification for the policy. You only realize the extent to which Wildavsky's findings occur when you ask the question he posed. Wildavsky's students did it in the safety of academia and with the excuse that it was an assignment. I have learned it is a difficult question to ask in the real world, however I firmly believe it is the most important question to ask if we are to advance in the right direction.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. He can be reached at letters@canadafreepress.com

[JJ McGuire]

Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Most of the literate world today regards "global warming'' as both real and dangerous. Indeed, the diplomatic activity concerning warming might lead one to believe that it is the major crisis confronting mankind. The June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, focused on international agreements to deal with that threat, and the heads of state from dozens of countries attended. I must state at the outset, that, as a scientist, I can find no substantive basis for the warming scenarios being popularly described. Moreover, according to many studies I have read by economists, agronomists, and hydrologists, there would be little difficulty adapting to such warming if it were to occur. Such was also the conclusion of the recent National Research Council's report on adapting to global change. Many aspects of the catastrophic scenario have already been largely discounted by the scientific community. For example, fears of massive sea-level increases accompanied many of the early discussions of global warming, but those estimates have been steadily reduced by orders of magnitude, and now it is widely agreed that even the potential contribution of warming to sea-level rise would be swamped by other more important factors.

To show why I assert that there is no substantive basis for predictions of sizeable global warming due to observed increases in minor greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons, I shall briefly review the science associated with those predictions.

Summary of Scientific Issues

Before even considering "greenhouse theory,'' it may be helpful to begin with the issue that is almost always taken as a given--that carbon dioxide will inevitably increase to values double and even quadruple present values. Evidence from the analysis of ice cores and after 1958 from direct atmospheric sampling shows that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air has been increasing since 1800. Before 1800 the density was about 275 parts per million by volume. Today it is about 355 parts per million by volume. The increase is generally believed to be due to the combination of increased burning of fossil fuels and before 1905 to deforestation. The total source is estimated to have been increasing exponentially at least until 1973. From 1973 until 1990 the rate of increase has been much slower, however. About half the production of carbon dioxide has appeared in the atmosphere.

Predicting what will happen to carbon dioxide over the next century is a rather uncertain matter. By assuming a shift toward the increased use of coal, rapid advances in the third world's standard of living, large population increases, and a reduction in nuclear and other nonfossil fuels, one can generate an emissions scenario that will lead to a doubling of carbon dioxide by 2030--if one uses a particular model for the chemical response to carbon dioxide emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I's model referred to that as the "business as usual'' scenario. As it turns out, the chemical model used was inconsistent with the past century's record; it would have predicted that we would already have about 400 parts per million by volume. An improved model developed at the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg shows that even the "business as usual'' scenario does not double carbon dioxide by the year 2100. It seems unlikely moreover that the indefinite future of energy belongs to coal. I also find it difficult to believe that technology will not lead to improved nuclear reactors within fifty years.

Nevertheless, we have already seen a significant increase in carbon dioxide that has been accompanied by increases in other minor greenhouse gases such as methane and chlorofluorocarbons. Indeed, in terms of greenhouse potential, we have had the equivalent of a 50 percent increase in carbon dioxide over the past century. The effects of those increases are certainly worth studying--quite independent of any uncertain future scenarios.

The Greenhouse Effect.

The crude idea in the common popular presentation of the greenhouse effect is that the atmosphere is transparent to sunlight (apart from the very significant reflectivity of both clouds and the surface), which heats the Earth's surface. The surface offsets that heating by radiating in the infrared. The infrared radiation increases with increasing surface temperature, and the temperature adjusts until balance is achieved. If the atmosphere were also transparent to infrared radiation, the infrared radiation produced by an average surface temperature of minus eighteen degrees centigrade would balance the incoming solar radiation (less that amount reflected back to space by clouds). The atmosphere is not transparent in the infrared, however. So the Earth must heat up somewhat more to deliver the same flux of infrared radiation to space. That is what is called the greenhouse effect.

The fact that the Earth's average surface temperature is fifteen degrees centigrade rather than minus eighteen degrees centigrade is attributed to that effect. The main absorbers of infrared in the atmosphere are water vapor and clouds. Even if all other greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide and methane) were to disappear, we would still be left with over 98 percent of the current greenhouse effect. Nevertheless, it is presumed that increases in carbon dioxide and other minor greenhouse gases will lead to significant increases in temperature. As we have seen, carbon dioxide is increasing. So are other minor greenhouse gases. A widely held but questionable contention is that those increases will continue along the path they have followed for the past century.

The simple picture of the greenhouse mechanism is seriously oversimplified. Many of us were taught in elementary school that heat is transported by radiation, convection, and conduction. The above representation only refers to radiative transfer. As it turns out, if there were only radiative heat transfer, the greenhouse effect would warm the Earth to about seventy-seven degrees centigrade rather than to fifteen degrees centigrade. In fact, the greenhouse effect is only about 25 percent of what it would be in a pure radiative situation. The reason for this is the presence of convection (heat transport by air motions), which bypasses much of the radiative absorption.


What is really going on is schematically illustrated in Figure 1. The surface of the Earth is cooled in large measure by air currents (in various forms including deep clouds) that carry heat upward and poleward. One consequence of this picture is that it is the greenhouse gases well above the Earth's surface that are of primary importance in determining the temperature of the Earth. That is especially important for water vapor, whose density decreases by about a factor of 1,000 between the surface and ten kilometers above the surface. Another consequence is that one cannot even calculate the temperature of the Earth without models that accurately reproduce the motions of the atmosphere. Indeed, present models have large errors here--on the order of 50 percent. Not surprisingly, those models are unable to calculate correctly either the present average temperature of the Earth or the temperature ranges from the equator to the poles. Rather, the models are adjusted or "tuned" to get those quantities approximately right.

It is still of interest to ask what we would expect a doubling of carbon dioxide to do. A large number of calculations show that if this is all that happened, we might expect a warming of from .5 to 1.2 degrees centigrade. The general consensus is that such warming would present few, if any, problems. But even that prediction is subject to some uncertainty because of the complicated way the greenhouse effect operates. More important, the climate is a complex system where it is impossible for all other internal factors to remain constant. In present models those other factors amplify the effects of increasing carbon dioxide and lead to predictions of warming in the neighborhood of four to five degrees centigrade. Internal processes within the climate system that change in response to warming in such a manner as to amplify the response are known as positive feedbacks. Internal processes that diminish the response are known as negative feedbacks. The most important positive feedback in current models is due to water vapor. In all current models upper tropospheric (five to twelve kilometers) water vapor--the major greenhouse gas--increases as surface temperatures increase. Without that feedback, no current model would predict warming in excess of 1.7 degrees centigrade--regardless of any other factors. Unfortunately, the way current models handle factors such as clouds and water vapor is disturbingly arbitrary. In many instances the underlying physics is simply not known. In other instances there are identifiable errors. Even computational errors play a major role. Indeed, there is compelling evidence for all the known feedback factors to actually be negative. In that case, we would expect the warming response to carbon dioxide doubling alone to be diminished.

It is commonly suggested that society should not depend on negative feedbacks to spare us from a "greenhouse catastrophe.'' What is omitted from such suggestions is that current models depend heavily on undemonstrated positive feedback factors to predict high levels of warming. The effects of clouds have been receiving the closest scrutiny. That is not unreasonable. Cloud cover in models is poorly treated and inaccurately predicted. Yet clouds reflect about seventy-five watts per square meter. Given that a doubling of carbon dioxide would change the surface heat flux by only two watts per square meter, it is evident that a small change in cloud cover can strongly affect the response to carbon dioxide. The situation is complicated by the fact that clouds at high altitudes can also supplement the greenhouse effect. Indeed, the effects of clouds in reflecting light and in enhancing the greenhouse effect are roughly in balance. Their actual effect on climate depends both on the response of clouds to warming and on the possible imbalance of their cooling and heating effects.

Similarly, factors involving the contribution of snow cover to reflectivity serve, in current models, to amplify warming due to increasing carbon dioxide. What happens seems reasonable enough; warmer climates presumably are associated with less snow cover and less reflectivity--which, in turn, amplify the warming. Snow is associated with winter when incident sunlight is minimal, however. Moreover, clouds shield the Earth's surface from the sun and minimize the response to snow cover. Indeed, there is growing evidence that clouds accompany diminishing snow cover to such an extent as to make that feedback factor negative. If, however, one asks why current models predict that large warming will accompany increasing carbon dioxide, the answer is mostly due to the effect of the water vapor feedback. Current models all predict that warmer climates will be accompanied by increasing humidity at all levels. As already noted, such behavior is an artifact of the models since they have neither the physics nor the numerical accuracy to deal with water vapor. Recent studies of the physics of how deep clouds moisturize the atmosphere strongly suggest that this largest of the positive feedbacks is not only negative, but very large.


Not only are there major reasons to believe that models are exaggerating the response to increasing carbon dioxide, but, perhaps even more significantly, the models' predictions for the past century incorrectly describe the pattern of warming and greatly overestimate its magnitude. The global average temperature record for the past century or so is irregular and not without problems. It does, however, show an average increase in temperature of about .45 degree centigrade plus or minus .15 degree centigrade with most of the increase occurring before 1940, followed by some cooling through the early 1970s and a rapid (but modest) temperature increase in the late 1970s. As noted, we have already seen an increase in "equivalent'' carbon dioxide of 50 percent. Thus, on the basis of models that predict a four degree centigrade warming for a doubling of carbon dioxide we might expect to have seen a warming of two degrees centigrade already. If, however, we include the delay imposed by the oceans' heat capacity, we might expect a warming of about one degree centigrade--which is still twice what has been observed. Moreover, most of that warming occurred before the bulk of the minor greenhouse gases were added to the atmosphere. Figure 2 shows what might have been expected for models with differing sensitivities to a doubling of carbon dioxide. What we see is that the past record is most consistent with an equilibrium response to a doubling of about 1.3 degrees centigrade--assuming that all the observed warming was due to increasing carbon dioxide. There is nothing in the record that can be distinguished from the natural variability of the climate, however.

If one considers the tropics, that conclusion is even more disturbing. There is ample evidence that the average equatorial sea surface has remained within plus or minus one degree centigrade of its present temperature for billions of years, yet current models predict average warming of from two to four degrees centigrade even at the equator. It should be noted that for much of the Earth's history, the atmosphere had much more carbon dioxide than is currently anticipated for centuries to come. I could, in fact, go on at great length listing the evidence for small responses to a doubling of carbon dioxide; there are space constraints, however.

Consensus and the Current "Popular Vision''

Many studies from the nineteenth century on suggested that industrial and other contributions to increasing carbon dioxide might lead to global warming. Problems with such predictions were also long noted, and the general failure of such predictions to explain the observed record caused the field of climatology as a whole to regard the suggested mechanisms as suspect. Indeed, the global cooling trend of the 1950s and 1960s led to a minor global cooling hysteria in the 1970s. All that was more or less normal scientific debate, although the cooling hysteria had certain striking analogues to the present warming hysteria including books such as The Genesis Strategy by Stephen Schneider and Climate Change and World Affairs by Crispin Tickell--both authors are prominent in support of the present concerns as well--"explaining'' the problem and promoting international regulation. There was also a book by the prominent science writer Lowell Ponte (The Cooling) that derided the skeptics and noted the importance of acting in the absence of firm, scientific foundation. There was even a report by the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences reaching its usual ambiguous conclusions. But the scientific community never took the issue to heart, governments ignored it, and with rising global temperatures in the late 1970s the issue more or less died. In the meantime, model calculations--especially at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton--continued to predict substantial warming due to increasing carbon dioxide. Those predictions were considered interesting, but largely academic, exercises--even by the scientists involved.

The present hysteria formally began in the summer of 1988, although preparations had been put in place at least three years earlier. That was an especially warm summer in some regions, particularly in the United States. The abrupt increase in temperature in the late 1970s was too abrupt to be associated with the smooth increase in carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in testimony before Sen. Al Gore's Committee on Science, Technology and Space, said, in effect, that he was 99 percent certain that temperature had increased and that there was some greenhouse warming. He made no statement concerning the relation between the two.

Despite the fact that those remarks were virtually meaningless, they led the environmental advocacy movement to adopt the issue immediately. The growth of environmental advocacy since the 1970s has been phenomenal. In Europe the movement centered on the formation of Green parties; in the United States the movement centered on the development of large public interest advocacy groups. Those lobbying groups have budgets of several hundred million dollars and employ about 50,000 people; their support is highly valued by many political figures. As with any large groups, self-perpetuation becomes a crucial concern. "Global warming'' has become one of the major battle cries in their fundraising efforts. At the same time, the media unquestioningly accept the pronouncements of those groups as objective truth.

Within the large-scale climate modelling community--a small subset of the community interested in climate--however, the immediate response was to criticize Hansen for publicly promoting highly uncertain model results as relevant to public policy. Hansen's motivation was not totally obvious, but despite the criticism of Hansen, the modelling community quickly agreed that large warming was not impossible. That was still enough for both the politicians and advocates who have generally held that any hint of environmental danger is a sufficient basis for regulation unless the hint can be rigorously disproved. That is a particularly pernicious asymmetry, given that rigor is generally impossible in environmental sciences.

Other scientists quickly agreed that with increasing carbon dioxide some warming might be expected and that with large enough concentrations of carbon dioxide the warming might be significant. Nevertheless, there was widespread skepticism. By early 1989, however, the popular media in Europe and the United States were declaring that "all scientists'' agreed that warming was real and catastrophic in its potential.

As most scientists concerned with climate, I was eager to stay out of what seemed like a public circus. But in the summer of 1988 Lester Lave, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote to me about being dismissed from a Senate hearing for suggesting that the issue of global warming was scientifically controversial. I assured him that the issue was not only controversial but also unlikely. In the winter of 1989 Reginald Newell, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lost National Science Foundation funding for data analyses that were failing to show net warming over the past century. Reviewers suggested that his results were dangerous to humanity. In the spring of 1989 I was an invited participant at a global warming symposium at Tufts University. I was the only scientist among a panel of environmentalists. There were strident calls for immediate action and ample expressions of impatience with science. Claudine Schneider, then a congressman from Rhode Island, acknowledged that "scientists may disagree, but we can hear Mother Earth, and she is crying.'' It seemed clear to me that a very dangerous situation was arising, and the danger was not of "global warming'' itself.

In the spring of 1989 I prepared a critique of global warming, which I submitted to Science, a magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The paper was rejected without review as being of no interest to the readership. I then submitted the paper to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, where it was accepted after review, rereviewed, and reaccepted--an unusual procedure to say the least. In the meantime, the paper was attacked in Science before it had even been published. The paper circulated for about six months as samizdat. It was delivered at a Humboldt conference at M.I.T. and reprinted in the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

In the meantime, the global warming circus was in full swing. Meetings were going on nonstop. One of the more striking of those meetings was hosted in the summer of 1989 by Robert Redford at his ranch in Sundance, Utah. Redford proclaimed that it was time to stop research and begin acting. I suppose that that was a reasonable suggestion for an actor to make, but it is also indicative of the overall attitude toward science. Barbara Streisand personally undertook to support the research of Michael Oppenheimer at the Environmental Defense Fund, although he is primarily an advocate and not a climatologist. Meryl Streep made an appeal on public television to stop warming. A bill was even prepared to guarantee Americans a stable climate.

By the fall of 1989 some media were becoming aware that there was controversy (Forbes and Reader's Digest were notable in that regard). Cries followed from environmentalists that skeptics were receiving excessive exposure. The publication of my paper was followed by a determined effort on the part of the editor of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Richard Hallgren, to solicit rebuttals. Such articles were prepared by Stephen Schneider and Will Kellogg, a minor scientific administrator for the past thirty years, and those articles were followed by an active correspondence mostly supportive of the skeptical spectrum of views. Indeed, a recent Gallup poll of climate scientists in the American Meteorological Society and in the American Geophysical Union shows that a vast majority doubts that there has been any identifiable man-caused warming to date (49 percent asserted no, 33 percent did not know, 18 percent thought some has occurred; however, among those actively involved in research and publishing frequently in peer-reviewed research journals, none believes that any man-caused global warming has been identified so far). On the whole, the debate within the meteorological community has been relatively healthy and, in this regard, unusual.

Outside the world of meteorology, Greenpeace's Jeremy Legett, a geologist by training, published a book attacking critics of warming---especially me. George Mitchell, Senate majority leader and father of a prominent environmental activist, also published a book urging acceptance of the warming problem (World on Fire: Saving an Endangered Earth). Sen. Gore recently published a book (Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit). Those are just a few examples of the rapidly growing publications on warming. Rarely has such meager science provoked such an outpouring of popularization by individuals who do not understand the subject in the first place.

The activities of the Union of Concerned Scientists deserve special mention. That widely supported organization was originally devoted to nuclear disarmament. As the cold war began to end, the group began to actively oppose nuclear power generation. Their position was unpopular with many physicists. Over the past few years, the organization has turned to the battle against global warming in a particularly hysterical manner. In 1989 the group began to circulate a petition urging recognition of global warming as potentially the great danger to mankind. Most recipients who did not sign were solicited at least twice more. The petition was eventually signed by 700 scientists including a great many members of the National Academy of Sciences and Nobel laureates. Only about three or four of the signers, however, had any involvement in climatology. Interestingly, the petition had two pages, and on the second page there was a call for renewed consideration of nuclear power. When the petition was published in the New York Times, however, the second page was omitted. In any event, that document helped solidify the public perception that "all scientists'' agreed with the disaster scenario. Such a disturbing abuse of scientific authority was not unnoticed. At the 1990 annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, Frank Press, the academy's president, warned the membership against lending their credibility to issues about which they had no special knowledge. Special reference was made to the published petition. In my opinion what the petition did show was that the need to fight "global warming'' has become part of the dogma of the liberal conscience--a dogma to which scientists are not immune.

At the same time, political pressures on dissidents from the "popular vision'' increased. Sen. Gore publicly admonished "skeptics'' in a lengthy New York Times op-ed piece. In a perverse example of double-speak he associated the "true believers'' in warming with Galileo. He also referred, in another article, to the summer of 1988 as the Kristallnacht before the warming holocaust.

The notion of "scientific unanimity'' is currently intimately tied to the Working Group I report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued in September 1990. That panel consists largely of scientists posted to it by government agencies. The panel has three working groups. Working Group I nominally deals with climate science. Approximately 150 scientists contributed to the report, but university representation from the United States was relatively small and is likely to remain so, since the funds and time needed for participation are not available to most university scientists. Many governments have agreed to use that report as the authoritative basis for climate policy. The report, as such, has both positive and negative features. Methodologically, the report is deeply committed to reliance on large models, and within the report models are largely verified by comparison with other models. Given that models are known to agree more with each other than with nature (even after "tuning''), that approach does not seem promising. In addition, a number of the participants have testified to the pressures placed on them to emphasize results supportive of the current scenario and to suppress other results. That pressure has frequently been effective, and a survey of participants reveals substantial disagreement with the final report. Nonetheless, the body of the report is extremely ambiguous, and the caveats are numerous. The report is prefaced by a policymakers' summary written by the editor, Sir John Houghton, director of the United Kingdom Meteorological Office. His summary largely ignores the uncertainty in the report and attempts to present the expectation of substantial warming as firmly based science. The summary was published as a separate document, and, it is safe to say that policymakers are unlikely to read anything further. On the basis of the summary, one frequently hears that "hundreds of the world's greatest climate scientists from dozens of countries all agreed that.|.|.|.'' It hardly matters what the agreement refers to, since whoever refers to the summary insists that it agrees with the most extreme scenarios (which, in all fairness, it does not). I should add that the climatology community, until the past few years, was quite small and heavily concentrated in the United States and Europe.

While the International Panel on Climate Change's reports were in preparation, the National Research Council in the United States was commissioned to prepare a synthesis of the current state of the global change situation. The panel chosen was hardly promising. It had no members of the academy expert in climate. Indeed, it had only one scientist directly involved in climate, Stephen Schneider, who is an ardent environmental advocate. It also included three professional environmental advocates, and it was headed by a former senator, Dan Evans. The panel did include distinguished scientists and economists outside the area of climate, and, perhaps because of this, the report issued by the panel was by and large fair. The report concluded that the scientific basis for costly action was absent, although prudence might indicate that actions that were cheap or worth doing anyway should be considered. A subcommittee of the panel issued a report on adaptation that argued that even with the more severe warming scenarios, the United States would have little difficulty adapting. Not surprisingly, the environmentalists on the panel not only strongly influenced the reports, but failing to completely have their way, attempted to distance themselves from the reports by either resigning or by issuing minority dissents. Equally unsurprising is the fact that the New York Times typically carried reports on that panel on page 46. The findings were never subsequently discussed in the popular media--except for claims that the reports supported the catastrophic vision. Nevertheless, the reports of that panel were indicative of the growing skepticism concerning the warming issue.

Indeed, the growing skepticism is in many ways remarkable. One of the earliest protagonists of global warming, Roger Revelle, the late professor of ocean sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography who initiated the direct monitoring of carbon dioxide during the International Geophysical Year (1958), coauthored with S. Fred Singer and Chauncy Starr a paper recommending that action concerning global warming be delayed insofar as current knowledge was totally inadequate. Another active advocate of global warming, Michael McElroy, head of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard, has recently written a paper acknowledging that existing models cannot be used to forecast climate.

One might think that such growing skepticism would have some influence on public debate, but the insistence on "scientific unanimity'' continues unabated. At times, that insistence takes some very strange forms. Over a year ago, Robert White, former head of the U.S. Weather Bureau and currently president of the National Academy of Engineering, wrote an article for Scientific American that pointed out that the questionable scientific basis for global warming predictions was totally inadequate to justify any costly actions. He did state that if one were to insist on doing something, one should only do things that one would do even if there were no warming threat. Immediately after that article appeared, Tom Wicker, a New York Times columnist and a confidant of Sen. Gore, wrote a piece in which he stated that White had called for immediate action on "global warming.'' My own experiences have been similar. In an article in Audubon Stephen Schneider states that I have "conceded that some warming now appears inevitable.'' Differences between expectations of unmeasurable changes of a few tenths of a degree and warming of several degrees are conveniently ignored. Karen White in a lengthy and laudatory article on James Hansen that appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine reported that even I agreed that there would be warming, having "reluctantly offered an estimate of 1.2 degrees.'' That was, of course, untrue.

Most recently, I testified at a Senate hearing conducted by Sen. Gore. There was a rather arcane discussion of the water vapor in the upper troposphere. Two years ago, I had pointed out that if the source of water vapor in that region in the tropics was from deep clouds, then surface warming would be accompanied by reduced upper level water vapor. Subsequent research has established that there must be an additional source--widely believed to be ice crystals thrown off by those deep clouds. I noted that that source too probably acts to produce less moisture in a warmer atmosphere. Both processes cause the major feedback process to become negative rather than positive. Sen. Gore asked whether I now rejected my suggestion of two years ago as a major factor. I answered that I did. Gore then called for the recording secretary to note that I had retracted my objections to "global warming.'' In the ensuing argument, involving mostly other participants in the hearing, Gore was told that he was confusing matters. Shortly thereafter, however, Tom Wicker published an article in the New York Times that claimed that I had retracted my opposition to warming and that that warranted immediate action to curb the purported menace. I wrote a letter to the Times indicating that my position had been severely misrepresented, and, after a delay of over a month, my letter was published. Sen. Gore nonetheless claims in his book that I have indeed retracted my scientific objections to the catastrophic warming scenario and also warns others who doubt the scenario that they are hurting humanity.

Why, one might wonder, is there such insistence on scientific unanimity on the warming issue? After all, unanimity in science is virtually nonexistent on far less complex matters. Unanimity on an issue as uncertain as "global warming'' would be surprising and suspicious. Moreover, why are the opinions of scientists sought regardless of their field of expertise? Biologists and physicians are rarely asked to endorse some theory in high energy physics. Apparently, when one comes to "global warming,'' any scientist's agreement will do.

The answer almost certainly lies in politics. For example, at the Earth Summit in Rio, attempts were made to negotiate international carbon emission agreements. The potential costs and implications of such agreements are likely to be profound for both industrial and developing countries. Under the circumstances, it would be very risky for politicians to undertake such agreements unless scientists "insisted.'' Nevertheless, the situation is probably a good deal more complicated than that example suggests.

The Temptation and Problems of "Global Warming''

As Aaron Wildavsky, professor of political science at Berkeley, has quipped, "global warming'' is the mother of all environmental scares. Wildavsky's view is worth quoting. "Warming (and warming alone), through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the environmentalist's dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population's eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.'' In many ways Wildavsky's observation does not go far enough. The point is that carbon dioxide is vitally central to industry, transportation, modern life, and life in general. It has been joked that carbon dioxide controls would permit us to inhale as much as we wish; only exhaling would be controlled. The remarkable centrality of carbon dioxide means that dealing with the threat of warming fits in with a great variety of preexisting agendas--some legitimate, some less so: energy efficiency, reduced dependence on Middle Eastern oil, dissatisfaction with industrial society (neopastoralism), international competition, governmental desires for enhanced revenues (carbon taxes), and bureaucratic desires for enhanced power.

The very scale of the problem as popularly portrayed and the massive scale of the suggested responses have their own appeal. The Working Group I report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested, for example, that a 60 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions might be needed. Such a reduction would call for measures that would be greater than those that have been devoted to war and defense. And just as defense has dealt with saving one's nation, curbing "global warming'' is identified with saving the whole planet! It may not be fortuitous that this issue is being promoted at just the moment in history when the cold war is ending.

Major agencies in the United States, hitherto closely involved with traditional approaches to national security, have appropriated the issue of climate change to support existing efforts. Notable among those agencies are NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy. The cold war helped spawn a large body of policy experts and diplomats specializing in issues such as disarmament and alliance negotiations. In addition, since the Yom Kippur War, energy has become a major component of national security with the concomitant creation of a large cadre of energy experts. Many of those individuals see in the global change issue an area in which to continue applying their skills. Many scientists also feel that national security concerns formed the foundation for the U.S. government's generous support of science. As the urgency of national security, traditionally defined, diminishes, there is a common feeling that a substitute foundation must be established. "Saving the planet'' has the right sort of sound to it. Fundraising has become central to environmental advocates' activities, and the message underlying some of their fundraising seems to be "pay us or you'll fry.''

Clearly, "global warming'' is a tempting issue for many very important groups to exploit. Equally clearly, though far less frequently discussed, are the profound dangers in exploiting that issue. As we shall also see, there are good reasons why there has been so little discussion of the downside of responding to "global warming.''

A parochial issue is the danger to the science of climatology. As far as I can tell, there has actually been reduced funding for existing climate research. That may seem paradoxical, but, at least in the United States, the vastly increased number of scientists and others involving themselves in climate as well as the gigantic programs attaching themselves to climate have substantially outstripped the increases in funding. Perhaps more important are the pressures being brought to bear on scientists to get the "right'' results. Such pressures are inevitable, given how far out on a limb much of the scientific community has gone. The situation is compounded by the fact that some of the strongest proponents of "global warming'' in Congress are also among the major supporters of science (Sen. Gore is notable among those). Finally, given the momentum that has been building up among so many interest groups to fight "global warming,'' it becomes downright embarrassing to support basic climate research. After all, one would hate to admit that one had mobilized so many resources without the basic science's being in place. Nevertheless, given the large increase in the number of people associating themselves with climatology and the dependence of much of that community on the perceived threat of warming, it seems unlikely that the scientific community will offer much resistance. I should add that as ever greater numbers of individuals attach themselves to the warming problem, the pressures against solving the problem grow proportionally; an inordinate number of individuals and groups depend on the problem's remaining.

In addition to climatologists, are there other groups that are at risk? Here, one might expect that industry could be vulnerable, and, indeed, it may be. At least in the United States, however, industries seem to be primarily concerned with improving their public image, often by supporting environmental activists. Moreover, some industries have become successful at profiting from environmental regulation. The most obvious example is the waste management industry. Even electric utility companies have been able to use environmental measures to increase the base on which their regulated profits are calculated. It is worth noting that about 1.7 trillion dollars have been spent on the environment over the past decade. The environment, itself, qualifies as one of our major industries.

If Wildavsky's scenario is correct, the major losers would be ordinary people. Wealth that could have been used to raise living standards in much of the world would be squandered. Living standards in the developed world would decrease. Regulatory apparatuses would restrict individual freedom on an unprecedented scale. Here too, however, one cannot expect much resistance to proposed actions--at least not initially. Public perceptions, under the influence of extensive, deceptive, and one-sided publicity, can become disconnected from reality. For example, Alabama has had a pronounced cooling trend since 1935. Nevertheless, a poll among professionals in Alabama found that about 95 percent of the participants believed that the climate had been warming over the past fifty years and that the warming was due to the greenhouse effect. Public misperceptions coupled with a sincere desire to "save the planet'' can force political action even when politicians are aware of the reality.

What the above amounts to is a societal instability. At a particular point in history, a relatively minor suggestion or event serves to mobilize massive interests. While the proposed measures may be detrimental, resistance is largely absent or coopted. In the case of climate change, the probability that the proposed regulatory actions would for the most part have little impact on climate, regardless of the scenario chosen, appears to be of no consequence.

Modelling and Societal Instability

So far I have emphasized the political elements in the current climate hysteria. There can be no question, however, that scientists are abetting this situation. Concerns about funding have already been mentioned. There is, however, another perhaps more important element to the scientific support. The existence of modern computing power has led to innumerable modelling efforts in many fields. Supercomputers have allowed us to consider the behavior of systems seemingly too complex for other approaches. One of those systems is climate. Not surprisingly, there are many problems involved in modelling climate. For example, even supercomputers are inadequate to allow long-term integrations of the relevant equations at adequate spatial resolutions. At presently available resolutions, it is unlikely that the computer solutions are close to the solutions of the underlying equations. In addition, the physics of unresolved phenomena such as clouds and other turbulent elements is not understood to the extent needed for incorporation into models. In view of those problems, it is generally recognized that models are at present experimental tools whose relation to the real world is questionable.

While there is nothing wrong in using those models in an experimental mode, there is a real dilemma when they predict potentially dangerous situations. Should scientists publicize such predictions since the models are almost certainly wrong? Is it proper to not publicize the predictions if the predicted danger is serious? How is the public to respond to such predictions? The difficulty would be diminished if the public understood how poor the models actually are. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to hold in awe anything that emerges from a sufficiently large computer. There is also a reluctance on the part of many modellers to admit to the experimental nature of their models lest public support for their efforts diminish. Nevertheless, with poor and uncertain models in wide use, predictions of ominous situations are virtually inevitable--regardless of reality.

Such weak predictions feed and contribute to what I have already described as a societal instability that can cascade the most questionable suggestions of danger into major political responses with massive economic and social consequences. I have already discussed some of the reasons for this instability: the existence of large cadres of professional planners looking for work, the existence of advocacy groups looking for profitable causes, the existence of agendas in search of saleable rationales, and the ability of many industries to profit from regulation, coupled with an effective neutralization of opposition. It goes almost without saying that the dangers and costs of those economic and social consequences may be far greater than the original environmental danger. That becomes especially true when the benefits of additional knowledge are rejected and when it is forgotten that improved technology and increased societal wealth are what allow society to deal with environmental threats most effectively. The control of societal instability may very well be the real challenge facing us.

[Hammer]

Most recently, I testified at a Senate hearing conducted by Sen. Gore.

HOW OLD IS THIS ARTICLE? AL GORE WAS ELECTED VP IN 1992 SO YOU HAVE PRODUCED AN ARTICLE THAT IS AT LEAST 15 YEARS OLD.

BOTH LINDZEN AND BALL ARE WIDELY REGARDED AS CRACKPOTS BY THEIR COLLEAGUES....YOU GIVE ME 1 OR 2 DISSENTING WHACK JOBS- BOTH OF WHOM HAVE OIL COMPANY STAINS ON THEIR HANDS- AND I GIVE YOU 1000s UPON 1000s OF INDEPENDENT SCIENTISTS.

BTW, THE REBELS KICKED YOUR BULLDOG ARSES LAST NIGHT AND JUST TIED TODAY'S GAME....EAT SHIRT DAWGS. OMAHA OR BUST.

[Bullreds & Greenheads]

Its amazing how ANYONE that disagrees with you is either an idiot, bought off by someone or something, or in some nebulous way, morally or mentally defective.

Here it is in a nutshell. The subject of global warming is controversial because the science is not exact. The science of climatology is about as exact as the science of meteorology. I'm sorry you refuse to acknowledge that fact.

You say that every scientist that disagrees with the theory of global warming is either corrupt, stupid, or wrong. I could just as illogically say the same about the scientists who push the theory of global warming. In either case it would be intellectually wrong and untrue.

But you do have a point. Most research scientists are usually desparate for research grants or sponsors. Oil companies have deep pockets. So do environmental groups, political parties, and governments pushing left wing agendas. Both sides have scientists that can be bought.

As I said in my first post, as the "science" stands now, it comes down to belief. And that's ok. Belief is intrinsically human. As you stated earlier, you gained your beliefs about global warming by observations taken while in the field and through your readings. Again, nothing wrong with that. However, my background in history and biology, and my experiences in the politics of academia and education, as well as my own investigations, have led me to a different conclusion. Who's right? Who's wrong? The fact is that only time will tell.

As I also said in my first post, nothing that has been posted here has changed anyone's mind. You either believe global warming is a real, man-made phenomena that will cause global catastrophe, or it is the natural cycle of the world that we have little control over.

Logic and reason are poor weapons against belief. Therefore, this will probably be my last attempt to use either in dealing with this subject.

[Po Monkey Lounger]

ITs really amazing, this "belief" in the doomsday prophecies due to man-caused global warming induced by increased carbon emissions ---all from a body of "science" that cannot even accurately tell me if it will rain next week ---supposedly caused by a greenhouse gas that naturally occurs and comprises less than 2% of the total greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. There is more solid evidence to support the existence of Bigfoot and the Lochness monster than this doomsday/carbon emission/GW theory.

But, we should know if this theory is correct or not within about 5 to 10 years ---after all, these folks like Hammer are telling us that earth as we know it today, will no longer be the same within this relatively short time frame.

And I will go ahead, on record, and predict the following. The doomsday prophecies will not happen. There will be no apocalyptic climate change. The earth will continue its fairly recent cooling trend. The sun will continue to rise. All of us will continue with our normal lives. There will be NO objective evidence forthcoming to support this theory. But, the folks invested so heavily in this great hoax, with mucho deniro invested, and egos the size of Texas, will fail to admit they are wrong and will stick with this nonsense for many years --- until no one buys it anymore except a babbling, incoherent bearded Al Gore and a few stoned hippies in California. So shall it be written, so shall it be done. Check back with me in 5 years.

[rjohnson]

Few beers brought this thought to mind. If, big if, it is really getting warmer has anyone thought about the source of heat. Maybe the currents on the sun's surface have changed and caused it to burn brighter thus resulting in the 0.0000001 degree yearly average temperature gain. See Hammer another hypothesis that could be argued just as strong as yours. Maybe the GHG's is just a minute factor in the whole equation. I would say changes in the sun's temperature would carry a whole hell of a lot more weight than the atmosphere.

Another thing though it appears to be hot to us now maybe the world is really supposed to be much much warmer than it currently is and we are just gradually getting there. I mean after all wasn't this part of the U.S. under the ocean at one point. It took I don't know how many thousands or millions of years to get from the Ice Age to where we are now. At some point it will all reverse and then people will be screaming Global Cooling and letting their cars idle in the driveway at night to help the cause if they believe your scientists. That could support our cycles theory. Maybe we will have to adapt and live 150 degree weather at some point. But this adaption will be gradual if it ever comes.

The problem with the scientists is they can only guess what the temperatures were thousands of years ago. They have no hard numbers to go on just merely guesstimates. I'm with Po Monk that it's really hard to believe them when they can't even get the current forecast correct much more than a couple of hours ahead of time.

To reiterate there are many other possibilities to temperature changes on Earth. It may just be possible that the amount of GHG doesn't carry enough weight to even affect temperature change. Your entitled to your opinions but don't bash ours or try to get us to drink the GW Kool-Aid.

Just out of curiousity what kind of vehicles does your family drive? Are they hybrids or do they get very good gas mileage? I would expect someone of conviction on GW to drive the most fuel efficient you could get your hands on.

[JJ McGuire]

Most recently, I testified at a Senate hearing conducted by Sen. Gore.

HOW OLD IS THIS ARTICLE? AL GORE WAS ELECTED VP IN 1992 SO YOU HAVE PRODUCED AN ARTICLE THAT IS AT LEAST 15 YEARS OLD.

BOTH LINDZEN AND BALL ARE WIDELY REGARDED AS CRACKPOTS BY THEIR COLLEAGUES....YOU GIVE ME 1 OR 2 DISSENTING WHACK JOBS- BOTH OF WHOM HAVE OIL COMPANY STAINS ON THEIR HANDS- AND I GIVE YOU 1000s UPON 1000s OF INDEPENDENT SCIENTISTS.

BTW, THE REBELS KICKED YOUR BULLDOG ARSES LAST NIGHT AND JUST TIED TODAY'S GAME....EAT SHIRT DAWGS. OMAHA OR BUST.

Too bad the weather is not as predictable as you are...

[rjohnson]

Here's the real reason! Article

[Hammer]

Differences between climatology and meteorology

In contrast to meteorology, which studies short term weather systems lasting up to a few weeks, climatology studies the frequency and trends of those systems. It studies the periodicity of weather events over years to millennia, as well as changes in long-term average weather patterns, in relation to atmospheric conditions. Climatologists, those who practice climatology, study both the nature of climates - local, regional or global - and the natural or human-induced factors that cause climates to change. Climatology considers the past and can help predict future climate change.

Phenomena of climatological interest include the atmospheric boundary layer, circulation patterns, heat transfer (radiative, convective and latent), interactions between the atmosphere and the oceans and land surface (particularly vegetation, land use and topography), and the chemical and physical composition of the atmosphere. Related disciplines include astrophysics, atmospheric physics, chemistry, ecology, geology, geophysics, glaciology, hydrology, oceanography, and volcanology.

[Hammer]

Since 1990 Great Britain has reduced carbon emissions 15%

Since 1990 Great Britain's economy has grown 35%

[JJ McGuire]

Since 1990 Great Britain has reduced carbon emissions 15%

Since 1990 Great Britain's economy has grown 35%

Wow two statements, and the only thing in common is Great Britain.

Your economics is as bad as your science.

You are fraudulently implying reduced carbon emission correlates to economic growth.

[rjohnson]

Since 1990 Great Britain has reduced carbon emissions 15%

Since 1990 Great Britain's economy has grown 35%

Wow two statements, and the only thing in common is Great Britain.

Your economics is as bad as your science.

You are fraudulently implying reduced carbon emission correlates to economic growth.

He's grasping at air now.