Archive » June 8, 2007

Political Opinion From the Right

By Harris Sherline

From The Right

By Harris R. Sherline

Global Warming: Is It Real?

Hysteria about fossil fuels and the automobile destroying civilization is running rampant in the media. If you don’t believe Global Warming is real, you’re either too stupid to understand the evidence that’s right under your nose, or you’re a vicious capitalist who wants to destroy the earth and kill old people and children just to make money.

Environmental activists believe mankind’s activities are the primary cause of Global Warming. The media deluges us with scientific proof offered by the environmentalists, but we hear almost nothing about the many scientists who have concluded that close examination of the claims fall far short of validating Global Warming orthodoxy.

I believe the science that purports to support the environmentalists’ claims is faulty and that their fears are not valid. To me, they’re just one more group crying, “The sky is falling.” They are just another special interest group with a political philosophy that advocates increased government ownership of private property and centralized control of the economy, who are using the Global Warming issue as a way of advancing their goals.

As early as May 2002, reporting on the contrarian view of Global Warming, The Federalist (Patriot Post) noted:

· “A group of real scientists spoke out Monday, debunking hysterical claims that ‘Global Warming’ will soon ruin the planet. University of Virginia Professor S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist, summed up: ‘The balance of evidence suggests that there has been no appreciable warming since 1940. This would indicate that the human effects on climate must be quite small.’”

· “The sun is responsible for most, and perhaps all of the short-term climate changes we observe. And about those ‘greenhouse gases,’ geologist Dr. Ulrich Berner added, ‘The climate of the past has varied under natural conditions without the influence of humans.’”

· “There are numerous temperature changes which are not mimicked by the CO2 concentration. Carbon dioxide doesn't police climatic changes. Climatic changes have always occurred and will for the future always occur…..”

In 1976, Lowell Ponte, a popular radio talk show host and former Roving Science and Technology Editor for Readers Digest, said, “It is a cold fact: that Global Cooling present humankind with the most important social, political and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for 10,000 years.” And,Timothy Ball, formerly a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, noted in a recent article (February 5, 2007), “…we believed, 30 years ago, that Global Cooling was the biggest threat.”

Where are all the “Chicken Littles” now, who were so positive that Earth was cooling then?

There seems to be little question that Global Warming may be occurring. But, before we get too exorcised about the situation, we probably should know a little more about why. There are a variety of theories, but in his columns, Global Hot Air and Global Hot Air: Part II, Thomas Sowell made the following observations:

· “Whether the globe really is warming is a question about facts – and about where those facts are measured: on land, in the air or under the sea. There is no question that there is a ‘greenhouse’ effect. Otherwise, half the planet would freeze every night when there is no sunlight falling on it.”

· “There is also no question that the earth can warm or cool. It has done both at one time or another for thousands of years, even before there were SUVs. If there had never been any global warming before, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy Yosemite Valley today for it was once buried under thousands of feet of ice.”

· “Back in the 1970s, the environmental hysteria was about the dangers of a new ice age. This hysteria was spread by many of the same individuals and groups who are promoting today’s hysteria about global warming.”

· “There are all kinds of scientists, from chemists to nuclear physicists to people who study insects, volcanoes, and endocrine glands – none of whom is an expert on weather or climate, but all of whom can be listed as scientists, to impress people who don’t scrutinize the list any further.”

· “Then there are genuine scientific experts on weather and climate. The National Academy of Sciences came out with a report on Global Warming back in 2001 with a very distinguished list of such experts listed. The problem is that not one of those very distinguished scientists actually wrote the report – or even saw it before it was published.”

Further clarification of the causes of changes in weather patterns is provided by John D. Cox, who noted:

· “Even in a globally warming world, storms are caused by circumstances that have always caused them. Earth’s rotation, orbit and tilt keep shifting the heat and the cold around the planet, and the atmosphere is constantly twisting itself into a turbulent mess trying to even things out…” (Sacramento Bee, Global Warming: What’s the big deal? February 4, 2007)

And, whatever happened to the theory that the flatulence of cows is causing or at least contributing to global warming? The U.N. even got into the act, issuing a report that concluded cow flatulence is a greater threat to the atmosphere than automobiles.

Is this a valid theory, or was the idea just floated as a trial balloon to see if it would gain legs, as they say in the media biz? Whatever the case, it didn’t stay in the news for long, perhaps because it never seemed to get past the LOL (laugh out loud) phase.

Jill Fallon’s December 14, 2006 post to her Estate Vaults.com Web site illustrates the humor of this claim, joking, “We have met the enemy and it moos? Apparently the beasts of the field do nothing but wander around all day asking their brethren to ‘pull my hoof.’ Every time a cow feels a small sense of relief, a polar bear goes through the ice.”

Cecil Adams, in his Straight Dope Classic, Do cow and termite flatulence threaten the earth’s atmosphere? (www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_176.html) dealt with the cow flatulence concern as far back as March 1989:

· “Now, you're probably saying, what the hay, cows have been around forever, how come all of a sudden they're a threat? All we know is this: atmospheric methane has been increasing at the alarming rate of one percent a year and something's got to be causing it. The world cattle population is thought to have increased in the last decade, and Lord knows the Brazilians don't feel like taking any more heat for torching the Amazon. So hey, let's blame the cows.”

· “In other words, we've got still another largely insoluble problem that threatens to end life as we know it. Sometimes I wish one of these looming disasters would go ahead and happen, just to end the suspense.”

In the final analysis, we all tend to reach conclusions based on our individual interpretations of the “facts.” At this point, I remain skeptical about the cause or causes of Global Warming and whether, as environmental alarmists claim, it is due to man’s activities. I accept that it may be happening, but find the argument that it is part of the historical lifecycle of the planet more convincing.

The cycle of warming and cooling has probably been going on since the earth was formed, and I doubt there is much we can do to influence it, let alone control it - and we certainly can’t accurately predict it many years in the future.