Hot and Cold
By Geoff Metcalf (02/07/07)
"Paradox implies that stating a contradiction disposes of it." --Mason Cooley
Those of us who are not scientists (most of us) think that science yields facts based on experimentation and empirical evidence.
I am not an academic and I've even played one on TV but as I have 'tried' (and failed) to adequately explain for a very long time is, global warming, at least as it is being peddled in media, is not real.
Yes, the earth has and will go through periods of warming and cooling, but the overwhelming empirical scientific data indicates those cycles (and they ARE a process NOT an event) are a function of solar cycles...not greenhouse gases or your SUV.
The hypothesis of global warming (and it IS a 'what if' hypothesis) is your basic SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess).
According to the recent grim report from a gaggle of usual suspect climate scientists and government wonks, global warming is so sever that it will "continue for centuries", significantly impacting the planet. Really?
Dr. S. Fred Singer is an atmospheric physicist at George Mason University. I have interviewed Dr. Singer http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/qa/19633.html in the past and referenced him in assorted columns. He remains a leading skeptic of the scientific consensus on global warming. Singer says that the scenarios are alarmist, computer models reflect real gaps in climate knowledge, and future warming will be inconsequential or modest at most.
Some people (fueled and supported by a complicit main stream media) hold that the threat of climate change is so great that we need to fundamentally change the way we produce and use energy. To fail to do so will result in a science fiction made real climactic holocaust.
Singer says, "Climate keeps changing all the time. The fact that climate changes is not in itself a threat..."
The big scare argument is that humans are the cause for climate change. Singer admits "there's no question in my mind that humanity is able to affect climate...on a local scale." Cities are warmer than suburbs or surrounding countryside...human beings, in producing energy, in just living, generate heat."
The big question of whether or not human beings can produce a global climate change is still unanswered. "This question is not at all settled. It can only be settled by actual measurements, data. And the data are ambiguous."
Despite the cries of 'Fire' in the crowded theater, facts in evidence still maintain more than 'reasonable doubt' for those not imprinted with the new religiousity of global warming.
· There is data that the earth has warmed since 1680.
· Then there was a cooling called LIA (Little Ice Age) that continued to now.
· The data show that the climate warmed between 1900 and 1940, long before humanity used much energy.
· Then the climate cooled between 1940 and 1975.
· Then it warmed again for a very short period of time, for about five years.
· But since 1979, best measurements show that the climate has been cooling just slightly.
Singer warns about ‘surface temperature’ readings."You have to be very careful with the surface record…It is taken with thermometers that are mostly located in or near cities. And as cities expand, they get warmer. And therefore they affect the readings." It is called ‘the urban heat island effect’ which is why he prefers to trust weather satellites."
From a statistical point of view, (we neophytes think) you get more credibility out of a longer record than a shorter record, don't you? Not really.
"A longer record, in general, will give you more statistical power, if there is a general overall trend." Ah-ha...the IF word. "But, in fact, the surface record also shows a cooling. So, which part of the surface record are you going to believe? The part before 1940, that shows a warming, or the part after 1940, that shows a cooling?" Therein may be the cause of the 'coming ice age' being replaced with 'epic global warming and melting ice caps followed by catacylsmic shifting of ocean currents."
I don't know. And YOU don't know. And more important, scientists are still searching for answers and data...in other words, they don't know.
Timothy Ball, another Ph.D with 32 years as a professor of climatology says, "Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist." http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
Ball says, "Global Warming is…the greatest deception in the history of science."
Ball, Singer and others may be attempting to debunk the global warming scare, however, they (and some would argue reason) are being shouted down by louder, better funded voices.
Several writers have observed that only 30 years ago global cooling was the big fear.
· In 1976 Lowell Ponte wrote, "It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years.”
· Time magazine warned readers on June 24, 1974 that, "Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age." Today, however, Time has changed its mind and joined the global-warming hysteria.
Despite the yelling, screaming, and effusive funding…we don’t know what we don’t know. The rest is “sound and fury”.
Geoff Metcalf
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