Global Warming Fallacies
Human-caused global warming advocates have based their propaganda campaign on several false premises:
The planet is already heating up. The historical record shows that global temperatures are not unusually warm today... This data, which is similar to many other studies of various world locations by means of experiment and of the historical record, shows a period of higher temperatures 1,000 years ago, and a period of lower temperatures 300 years ago.
World climate was so benign in this earlier warm period that it has long been referred to as the "Medieval Climate Optimum." So, even when the Earth was much warmer than today, none of the predicted catastrophes of the supposed human-caused global warming occurred.
During the past 300 years, the Earth has been recovering from a period of relatively low temperatures known as the "Little Ice Age" and is now back to approximately the 3,000-year average. But even during this period of recovery, the Earth (as already indicated) experienced a cooling trend from about 1940 to about 1975 sufficient to spark fears of catastrophic "global cooling." In truth, both during and before the industrial age, the temperature has always changed season to season and century to century.
The increase in temperature is being caused by the increase in atmospheric CO2. If this fallacy were true, then most of the increase in atmospheric CO2 would have occurred before most of the increase in temperature. Yet, as Figure 2 clearly shows, most of the temperature rise from the late 1800s to today (less than 1degree C) had already occurred by 1940, before most of the increase in atmospheric CO2 had taken place. Since the cause cannot occur after the presumed effect, this means that the increase in CO2 could not have caused the temperature rise.
CO2 is a pollutant being spewed into the atmosphere by human industry and activity. Atmospheric CO2 is not a pollutant. It is the single most important chemical constituent of the cycles of plant and animal life (see "A Greener Future" on page 25). All plant tissues are built from atmospheric CO2, and all plants and animals produce CO2 in the fundamental respiratory processes that permit them to exist. It has been definitively shown by many hundreds of experimental studies that increases in atmospheric CO2 cause increases in the amounts and the diversity of plant and animal life.
Yes, human activity does release CO2 into the atmosphere, but the amount, including what we exhale, must be kept in perspective. The atmosphere contains about 750 gigatons of CO2, but the oceans contain about 40,000 gigatons. Ordinary rises in world temperature increase atmospheric CO2 through out-gassing from the ocean that has nothing to do with man?s industrialization. In fact, there is not a shred of experimental evidence demonstrating human-caused global warming.
The computer models reliably show that the Earth's temperature will increase dramatically over the next century. The entire argument for this long-term forecast of catastrophic global warming is based on flawed computer projections produced and touted by United Nations operatives and their retainers and friends. In science, theory must be verified by experiment. These computer models have had a low level of reliability in the past, and there is no reason to expect that the same models will be any more accurate in the future.
The UN computer models are flawed in several ways: The data are inaccurate; the adjustable parameters are too numerous; the uncertainties in the computed values are large and poorly defined; and, most importantly, key assumptions regarding the "science" of global warming do not conform to experimental observations.
CO2, by itself, is not a significant greenhouse gas, and there is no scientific evidence that it can raise global temperatures significantly. However, the UN computer models assume not only that an increase in CO2 will cause a small increase in temperature, but that this small temperature increase will cause more evaporation from the oceans, and that the increase in water vapor (a highly significant greenhouse gas) will greatly multiply the effect of the CO2. This amplified effect is the basis of human-caused global warming claims. The problem with this is that the Earth has already demonstrated that it does not happen. The historical record shows that the Earth has, in the recent past, been much warmer than could ever be achieved by a CO2 greenhouse effect. Since water evaporation during those warm periods did not cause catastrophic global warming, there is no chance that CO2 could do so.
But why doesn't the "science" work as global warming alarmists theorize it should? And why can't any CO2-induced global warming be detected? An important factor is the complexity of the atmosphere, which, experimental evidence shows, is a self-correcting chemical system. It follows the principle of LeChatelier, who discovered this self-correcting property of chemical systems about a century ago. (This principle is explained in most introductory chemistry texts.) In short, LeChatelier?s effect has reduced the consequences of CO2 warming to such a low level that they are below the limits of detection by modern techniques.
A consensus comprised of nearly all scientists agrees that humans are causing a global warming crisis. Not only is there no such "consensus," but, if anything, the situation is opposite from what the global warming alarmists claim. When one of the authors of this essay (Dr. Arthur Robinson) briefly circulated a petition opposing the Kyoto treaty among American scientists, he received, by first class mail, about 17,000 signatures. The petition stated:
We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
With more resources for printing and mailing, probably 50,000 signatures could have been obtained from American scientists. The signatories included Dr. Frederick Seitz (past president of the National Academy of Sciences), who wrote a cover letter for the petition, and a long list of America's most accomplished scientists. (For a complete list of the signatories, two-thirds of whom hold advanced degrees, go to
www.oism.org/pproject.)
The solar energy reaching the Earth from the sun has absolutely nothing to do with the Earth's temperature! Of course, the global warming alarmists would not say anything so transparently silly. What they do instead is simply pretend the sun does not exist, at least so far as the Earth's temperature is concerned.
But there really is a relationship between the solar activity of the sun and the Earth's temperature, and historical measurements bear this out. ..From 1750 to the present, the Earth's temperature oscillations have closely tracked the changes in the intensity of the sun. In short, the data makes quite clear that the ordinary warming and cooling cycle of the sun is the primary controller of global temperatures and that this cycle is currently in an upward trend...
(Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, a professor of chemistry, is the founder of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, and editor of the newsletter Access to Energy. Dr. Jane Orient, a specialist in internal medicine, has a private practice and is the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.)
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2004/06-14-2004/science.htm
This is just one published article that lays out the basics.
Codger
