0606 Inconvenient Truths
Inconvenient Truths: Global warming (GW) models under or over simulate cloud microphysics by thirty to eighty percent. Differences between models of seasonal effects on climate range as high as several hundred percent. Studies documented in the journals “Nature” and “Science” indicate that the Sahara is shrinking and the Antarctic ice cap may be increasing. GW enthusiasts claim more warming now than in the last two thousand years, but tree-ring history covering 1569-1999 indicates that the twentieth century experienced less variation than all of the last 430 years. “When analyzing the total time period from 1951-2001…the 25 year trend analysis before 1976 [and thereafter] display cooling” (Hartman & Wendler; Alaska Climate Research Center).
A study of fossilized leaves revealed GW model errors as high as 36 degrees F. According to N.O.A.A., hurricane frequency actually decreased between 1970 and 1994. Studies indicate that warmer years have less hurricane activity. Greenhouse gas concentrations rose steadily from 1000AD-1750 but even though Earth warmed from 800AD-1200AD, it cooled from 1400-1850. In the twentieth century, greenhouse gases rose steadily but 1940-1975 constantly cooled, so much so that fear of another ice age erupted (“The Cooling World”; Newsweek, 1975) (“…Major Cooling May Be Ahead”, N.Y. Times, 1975). The Arctic experienced huge swings in climate in the third, tenth, and twelfth centuries and 1940 has been its warmest year this century. The claim that the last century has been the warmest in a thousand years has now been invalidated by three peer-reviewed studies. They found such claims used unjustified extrapolation, obsolete data, and erroneous calculations. Evidence now indicates that diminishing snow-cover from warming feeds more cloud cover which counteracts the warming. Indications are that rising Carbon Dioxide concentrations contribute to plant growth which in turn increases oxygen output.
There are strong correlations between twentieth century solar output and warming as well as low output and seventeenth century cooling. Mountain-top rain patterns, single forest climate patterns or regional climates do not and never will validate global climate models. “New” GW models are rarely new. They are actually reconstituted from previous models with new modifications. They compile average data from within blocks of the environment the size of Idaho. They are therefore hardly accurate, reliable or objective. In essence, model “science” keeps comparing models to models which are designed from models.
Inconvenient Consensus: “No scientist outside the closed engineering shop…can ever hope to assess whether or not the physical representations within [models] are acceptable. The normal and necessary process of scientific criticism cannot take place “(Paltridge; Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, retired). “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided and themselves derided and libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science”. (Lindzen; M.I.T., meteorology). “Observational evidence does not support today’s computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions.” (Letter by sixty climatologists to Canada’s Prime Minister). “[The temperature trend in the twentieth century] is not statistically different from zero…” (Balling; Director of Climatology, Arizona State). “There is almost universal agreement among atmospheric scientists that little if any of the observed warming in the past century can be attributed to man-induced increases in greenhouse gasses.” (Ellsaesser; Lawrence Livermore Labs) “Mean sea level has not changed in the past century…atmospheric temperature, though having up-and-down cycles, have not established a trend in either direction…the gasses in the atmosphere cased by human activities are insignificant (Stevenson; Secretary General of the International Association for Physical Science in the Ocean). The list of consensus blunders are almost endless – childbirth fevers, Pellagra, continental drift, smallpox, germ theory, hormone replacement, Saccharine, nuclear wither, etc.
Inconvenient Ideology and Politics: “We are, however, worried at the dawn of the twenty-first century, at the emergence of an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development…We do, however, forewarn the authorities in charge of our planet’s destiny against decisions which are supported by pseudoscientific arguments or false and irrelevant data (Heidelberg Appeal; over four thousand signers including 72 Nobel laureates). The U.N. Conference on Environmental Development (UNCED) was the set-up for what eventually became the Kyoto Protocol. A former Governor of Washington attended UNCED and stated that the “agenda was based upon the International Socialist Party Platform.” “[Humans have dominion] and are not principally consumers and polluters…” (Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, 1500 signers).
It would be amusing if it weren’t so sad; the claims of global warming post-modern consensus scientists versus the truth of empirical science. Most distressing is that the institution the public has been trained to accept as able to expose the dynamics of nature with testable facts is now, in some quarters, abandoning the concepts of reliability and verifiability in favor of projection-based majority opinion. Just as tragically, in areas of study which are socially and politically hot, claims of open-minded examination of dissenting opinion are simply untrue.
At the end of the day either testable reality or consensus opinion must rule. Honesty would dictate that if all one has are very well-educated guesses, it should be openly admitted instead of being represented as all but absolutely true. Post-modern science not only opts for consensus over fact but goes so far as to deny the ability to know much anything absolutely – an amazing surrender to philosophy, not science, and a ploy to avoid the absence of hard evidence in favor of pre-desired outcomes. To represent peer review as an objective open-minded exchange of ideas and research is a half-truth at best. Ask any scientist skeptic of catastrophic human-induced warming or any intelligent design scientist about openness to dissent. Ask Bjorn Lomborg (“The Skeptical Environmentalist”) his publisher Cambridge University Press, or his attorneys!
Only a simpleton would claim that God makes it impossible to damage the environment. But damaging a segment of the environment is a far cry from humanity-driven global catastrophe. Scripture never represents God’s control as a miraculously spotless preservation of creation or a constant over-ride of human irresponsibility. To attribute such thinking to “fringe” Christianity is a dishonest distortion of conservative theology. The caution against Biblical Christianity placing its faith in post-modern “science” and “Al-Gore-ish” doomsday claims still stands. Anyone who is interested in what genuine science has to say can visit the web sites for the Cato Institute or The Marshal Institute and follow their links. References are available by email upon request.