Global Warming Anti-Science

In a secularized world that often marginalizes traditional religion, it is, for many, science that retains a “sacred” quality and assumes a quasi-religious aspect.  So, it has been for the global warming movement, which has reverentially wrapped itself in the banner of science all along. 

“Science,” after all, is unimpeachable.  It is rational and disinterested; it attempts to unlock the secrets of nature in pursuit of the truth.  It's goals are laudable and its achievements grand; science has advanced the human condition immeasurably.  To link one's movement with "science" is to elevate and ennoble it in the public mind.

And, yet, the global warming enterprise has been anything but "disinterested"; it has been less than temperate in its forecasts and policy recommendations; it has also been reluctant to acknowledge reasonable criticism from credible sources; rather it has been zealous and draconian, in a way that belies its effort to cast itself as a purely scientific endeavor.   

The political philosophy that undergirds the global warming movement is decidedly leftist: it casts a baleful eye at consumerism, industry, and the US; it is, ultimately, a repudiation of capitalism.  Its methods involve global redistribution of wealth, high taxes, an intrusive regulatory system, and the ceding of power to international bodies such as the United Nations, all of which blends seamlessly with standard liberal aims. 

But apart from the unsuitability of its political positions, it is in the realm of science that global warming alarmism can and should be challenged.  Indeed, well before the recent “climate-gate” scandal, there were already any number of chinks appearing in the global warming edifice.

We learn from the Wall Street Journal, for example, that 1998 was not the hottest year on record as told by NASA, but rather 1934.  We also find that six of the ten warmest years on record have occurred not since 1990 but in the 1930s and 1940s, well before the major impact of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions would have shown.  Furthermore, climate models in the nineties predicted rising temperatures from 2000-2010, which have not occurred. 

We also learn that the actual contribution of man-made, "anthropogenic" substances relative to the total "greenhouse effect" is minor.  Water vapor, for example, is the dominant greenhouse gas, virtually all of which is natural and accounts for 95% of warming.  Carbon Dioxide contributes 3.618%, most of which is also natural.  The total man-made CO2 contribution to the greenhouse effect is .117%. 

  The data surrounding the melting of the polar ice caps is similarly unimpressive.  Total loss of ice for both Greenland and Antarctica between 1992-2003 would create a sea-level rise of .05 millimeters annually or about five centimeters in a thousand years.  There are also other explanations for this trivial loss of ice including naturally occurring phenomena such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.  Polar bear populations, notwithstanding sensationalist propaganda, have increased 4-5 times since 1970.  

It has also been generally acknowledged that there had been wide temperature fluctuations throughout human history and well before the industrial age.  There was the “Medieval Warming Period,” from 900 AD to 1300 AD, when temperatures were probably warmer than today; this was followed by the Little Ice Age, around 1400-1850, when it became quite cold.  Michael Mann’s now discredited “hockey stick” theory questioned the historical data showing wide ranging temperature variations, but researcher Stephen McIntyre challenged his findings by demonstrating a host of errors and miscalculations in his work. 

Global warming advocates have also long railed over what seemed to be an uptick in major Atlantic Hurricanes impacting the US since 1995, proclaiming man-made greenhouse gases as the culprit, but, as atmosphere scientist, William Gray, reports, there have actually been 44% more major land falling hurricanes in the US between 1925-1965 than from 1966-2006. 

The computer models upon which global warmists depend are notoriously inaccurate.  They are also rigged to forecast rising temperatures by overestimating the rate of CO2 increase and by inputting positive feedback from water vapor and clouds.  The models are also unable to account for other variables such as ocean currents, and volcanic and solar activity.

There are even questions regarding the reliability of temperature data itself.  Patrick Michaels reports that surface probes and weather balloon instruments from developing nations are not maintained properly and can result in higher temperature readings than actually exist.

There are a raft of gaps and deficits in the global warming theory.  There is also a disinclination by its proponents to acknowledge other more significant influences beyond greenhouse gases, such as solar variability, volcanic activity, cloud cover, and others.  And, yet, on this foundation of sand, environmentalists and political allies seek to impose policies that will cause profound economic dislocation and not benefit the climate at all. 

Simplistic, single-cause explanations for something as convoluted and unpredictable as weather is a rejection of sound science.