Published: December 29, 2008 04:17 pm      

Scientific data counters claims of global warming, fuels worldwide debate

Many of us accept as gospel media reports of scientists who warn that man’s activities are wrecking Earth’s atmosphere. Some of us go so far as to accept predictions of cataclysmic consequences if something isn’t done right this minute, and accept as part of the solution radical prescriptions to correct the problem, such as the dangerous provisions of the Kyoto Protocols.

We have been told by scientists in Australia that, for example, Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste, and that each bulb turned on in the name of Christmas will increase emissions of greenhouse gases. Bah! Humbug!

At least these scientists are urging only the use of energy efficient bulbs, rather than suggesting we stop using lights altogether, or just cancel Christmas, as more radical advocates might propose.

Spiked-online columnist Brendan O’Neill wrote the following: “Whoever thought that serious commentators would want it made illegal to have a row about the weather? One Australian columnist has proposed outlawing ‘climate change denial.’”

This columnist wrote: “David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial. Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.’” Let’s drink a toast to objective scientific inquiry.

Some in the U.S. global warming lobby complain that the issue is simply too important to be left to the uncertainties of a democratic society, where people are free to not agree with them. These open-minded people argue that such odd notions must be dispensed with where global warming is concerned.

But there are others who brave social, monetary and professional punishment to question these dire predictions and seek out the truth, which is far less easy to find than the abundant predictions of catastrophe.

In 1975 Newsweek magazine ran this: “There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production — with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas — parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia — where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.”

Scary stuff, huh? But this article of 30 years ago warned not of global warming, but of global cooling!

In February of this year California meteorologist Anthony Watts reported that all four major global temperature tracking outlets had recorded data showing that temperatures have dropped significantly over the last year, “and that the amount of cooling ranges from 65-hundredths of a degree Centigrade to 75-hundreds of a degree, ... a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. It is reportedly the single fastest temperature change ever recorded — up or down,” according to a Fox News story.

The story went on to say that “some scientists contend the cooling is the result of reduced solar activity — which they say is a larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases.” How many of you have ever heard of Mr. Watts revelation? Not many, I’ll bet.

The argument is less about whether the planet is warming than about the cause of it; warming and cooling periods are natural phenomena. Environmentalists insist that the activities of man, like producing electricity, driving cars and such, are increasing greenhouse gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and ozone at a dangerous rate, and the abundance of these gases raises atmospheric temperatures, threatening both animal and plant life. But inconvenient truths and facts continue to pile up against the manmade global warming theory.

Princeton University physicist Dr. Will Happer, who served as the director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993, was fired by Vice President Al Gore in 1993. “I was told that science was not going to intrude on policy,” he said.

Dr. Happer is one of a substantial and growing number of scientists who disagree with the manmade global warming faction of the scientific community. “I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken,” he said recently, and has asked to join the more than 650 international scientists who have spoken out against manmade global warming fears in this year’s Senate Minority Report. “The earth’s climate is changing now, as it always has. There is no evidence that the changes differ in any qualitative way from those of the past …”

Many of those who believe man is causing global warming think the situation is so dire that we don’t have time to debate the issue further, or to wait for sufficient evidence to produce a true consensus among climate scientists. But the liveliness of the debate tells us that we have a long way to go before a true consensus will be formed, and we should always be suspicious of causes too important to be held up to scrutiny.

James H. “Smokey” Shott, a resident of Bluefield, VA, is a Daily Telegraph columnist.