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Copyright © 2008 itsonlysteam.com
| March, 1992 Back to the Future with AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) |
(1) Warming due to carbon dioxide increases has already begun.
To determine whether temperatures have risen, scientists of course rely on temperature
measurements made by weather stations around the world. The most comprehensive
temperature data set contains a hundred million measurements, starting about 1861.
These data show an average temperature increase of 0.8°F since 1861. In light of known
inaccuracies in the measurements, many climatologists consider that there has been a
rise of 0.5 to 1.1°F for the last hundred years.3 (This figure, however, may be too high by
as much as half, because it does not take into account a factor known as "urban
warming." As population centers grow, weather stations become surrounded by local heat
sources, and thus their measurements show apparent warming even though no actual
warming has taken place. A study of North America, which counted only stations in rural
and remote areas, showed no increase in temperature over the last century.4 Whether
similar results would be found for the whole world is unknown.)
Global warming advocates proceed directly from the measured rise in temperature to the
assertion that increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the rise. Such a conclusion
arbitrarily ignores the abundant proof of other possible causes.
First, the temperature data for merely the last hundred years demonstrates that there are
other influences on the earth's temperature more important than carbon dioxide. If the
steady increases in carbon dioxide since the midnineteenth century were the main cause
of any temperature changes over the same period, there should have been a steady
warming of the earth. In fact, however, the temperature history shows large fluctuations.
From about 1860 to 1910 there was a decrease of about 0.2°F. From 1910 to 1938 there
was a large increase of 0.9°F. From 1938 to 1970 there was a decrease of 0.4°F. And
from 1970 to 1990 there was an increase of about 0.5°F. Such fluctuations cannot be
explained by rising carbon dioxide. For example, the large increase from 1910 to 1938
occurred when carbon dioxide levels were relatively low and going up slowly compared to
today. Further, the decrease from 1940 to 1970 occurred despite increasing carbon
dioxide. (Because urban warming causes only a relatively constant upward bias, these
fluctuations would essentially remain, even if the data could be corrected for urban
warming.) Clearly, major causal factors other than carbon dioxide are involved.
Even more telling, however, is the billions of years of naturally caused temperature
changes. It is well known that the temperature of the earth has fluctuated widely over
geologic time. 5 Over the last one million years the earth's temperature has varied by
13°F. In the most recent ten thousand years, our temperature has been near the warm
end of the natural range. We are in what is called an "interglacial" period in a longterm,
millionyearold glacial period. Even within this generally warm tenthousandyear period,
there have been large variations. Just in the last one thousand years, temperatures have
varied by 9°F-a variation more than ten fumes the 0.8°F rise claimed for the twentieth
century. The temperature change since the onset of the Industrial Revolution is thus fully
within the range of the earth's natural variations.
Moreover, the large historical variations obviously are the result of causes which have
nothing to do with man's burning of fossil fuels. Scientists are just beginning to investigate
what these causes might be. Two phenomena warranting study are: changes in solar
radiation and variations in heat from the interior of the earth.
It makes sense that differences in the sun's radiation should affect the temperature of the
earth, and there is some observational evidence to support this explanation. For example,
the Little Ice Age, which occurred between 1100 and 1750 A.D., coincided with a period
during which sunspots were nearly absent.6 Sunspots are giant eruptions on the sun's
surface. During periods of increased sunspot activity, increased solar energy reaches the
earth.
Until recently, no one has been able to show a close statistical correlation between the
sun's radiation and the earth's temperature. However, in the November 1,1991, issue of
Science magazine, a remarkable correlation was reported.7 Two Danish scientists
devised a new measure of the sun's radiation, the reciprocal of the length of the sunspot
cycle. The idea-which is still far from proven-is that higher frequency of sunspots
represents more intense radiation. The correlation coefficient (0.95) between this
measure of solar radiation and the global earth surface temperature is extraordinary,
probably the highest ever recorded in this field. (A correlation coefficient of zero indicates
no correlation, whereas a correlation coefficient of one indicates a perfect correlation. So,
0.95 is a nearperfect correlation.)
Another, even less well understood process affecting the earth's temperature is heat from
the interior of the earth. Possibly the largest source of such heat is from eruptions on the
ocean floor at midocean ridges. For example, there is evidence that in 1965 an eruption
in the Pacific covered an area of ocean floor greater than the area of Brooklyn (eighty
square miles) with lava an average of 220 feet thick. Yet it was not observed at the time.8
No one knows how frequently such eruptions occur, but the heat involved is enormous
and would probably affect the atmosphere. (Only a handful of scientists are studying such
effects. By contrast, thousands of scientists are examining the greenhouse effect.
Due to the influence of environmentalism, research money-most of it government
funds-tends to go only to those causes which can be blamed on man's productive
activities.)
In short, it is known with certainty that factors unrelated to increasing carbon dioxide have
large effects on the earth's temperature, that temperatures have risen and fallen
irrespective of changes in carbon dioxide, and that the last century's temperature rise is
well within the range of the earth's natural variations. To attribute the rise of the last
century to increased carbon dioxide is wholly unwarranted.
(2) Temperatures will rise three to nine degrees Fahrenheit over the next
century, if greenhouse gases continue to increase at projected rates.
If scientists do not understand what causes have led to past changes in the earth's
temperature, they surely cannot predict the earth's temperature a hundred years from
now. But this does not stop environmentalists from forecasting a 3 to 9°F rise. This
prediction is the central claim of the global warming theory.
Environmentalists base their prediction on computer programs called "general circulation
models" (GCMs). These models are computer "experiments" that attempt to mimic the
response of the earth's surface and atmosphere to increased carbon dioxide. Various
groups of climatologists, over the last ten to fifteen years, have refined these models until
they are now highly sophisticated. Today, most models predict a warming of 3.4 to 9.4°F
for a doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The first thing to note about GCMs is that they are not models in the sense of smallscale
replicas of the real world, but merely calculating devices, which are only as good as the
equations and input data which make them up. Because most of the causes of the earth's
climate are still unknown, the equations and data of the GCMs are necessarily very
incomplete. This alone is more than enough to show that they cannot be relied upon.
Further, where relevant facts which would conflict with desired results from the models are
known, global warming theorists simply ignore them. Probably the largest example of this
is the models' treatment of clouds and water vapor.
Radiative cooling occurs when energy leaves a body in the form of electromagnetic
radiation. Convective cooling, by contrast, occurs when some of the motion of the
molecules in a body is directly transferred to molecules outside the body. Many GCMs
overestimate the effect of radiative cooling and underestimate the effect of convective
cooling. As everyone knows, a person loses more heat in damp windy weather than when
it is dry and still. In dry, still weather one loses heat only by radiative cooling. In damp,
windy weather one loses additional heat by convection. The GCMs, in effect, consider the
earth only in still, dry weather. They ignore the "wind chill factor" of convection. A figure
illustrating the earth's heat budget by a famous climate modeler, Stephen Schneider,
shows virtually all the outgoing heat leaving the earth by radiation.9 In contrast, a
greenhouse "skeptic," Richard Lindzen, shows a more accurate picture with much of the
earth's emitted radiation absorbed, transported, and reemitted by clouds and water
vapor through convection. 10
The significance of this difference is enormous. Clouds and water vapor act as a kind of
short circuit to the greenhouse effect. Whereas greenhouse gases block the outgoing
radiative heat from leaving the earth, clouds and water vapor can physically move with the
winds and carry the same heat away from the earth regardless of any greenhouse gases.
The trump card here is that increased heating of the earth probably would increase winds
and thereby increase convective transport away from the earth. This is what is called
negative feedback: the hotter the earth gets, the more it cools off. Thus convection may
act as a giant thermostat keeping the earth at a relatively constant temperature.
The effect of differences in the way clouds and water vapor are treated has been
extensively discussed in the scientific literature. Several scientists have pointed out that
the GCMs indicate a positive feedback, when a negative feedback is more appropriate.11
The importance of this factor is illustrated by one research team that tested several
climate models that differed only in the way clouds and water vapor were handled. The
predicted temperature change was 3.4°F in one model and 9.4°F in another. 12 Thus,
seemingly minor adjustments in input led to a difference in output of six degrees-a
difference greater than the entire temperature increase predicted by most of the models.
GCMs consist essentially of the same equations and input as the computer programs that
still cannot accurately predict even next week's weather. To claim that these computer
programs prove that temperatures will rise by three to nine degrees over the next century
is nothing short of a fantasy.
The whole idea of using these models to predict future temperatures captures the
essence of the arbitrary and anticontextual methodology of the global warming theorists.
It is known that carbon dioxide is one of the gases which trap the earth's heat and keep
the globe at 59°F rather than 0°F. Thus, it is a possibility that, absent any other factors,
an increase in carbon dioxide would have some upward effect on temperatures. But it is
certain that there are other far more important factors, and precisely how these affect the
earth's temperature is unknown. The designers of these models purport to study the
complex and poorly understood system which regulates the earth's temperature by taking
only one isolated aspect of it (namely, carbon dioxide), building a computer program on
the basis of this one aspect, ignoring that there are other aspects completely left out of
the program, and arbitrarily claiming that their "model" represents the real world. Thus,
their method is a perfect example of the fallacy of contextdropping. The results of
contextdropping, explained by Leonard Peikoff, are as follows: "Whenever one treats a
conclusion as an atom unrelated to the rest of cognition, one thereby detaches the
conclusion, along with the thought process involving it, from reality. If one drops context,
one drops the means of distinguishing between truth and fantasy; anyone can then claim
to prove anything, however absurd." 13 The fallacy is an ideal tool for those who wish to
give a veneer of scientific objectivity to claims which have no basis in reality.
(3) Carbon dioxide increases are causing glaciers to melt and sea level to rise.
The assertion that increasing carbon dioxide is leading to rising temperatures is, as we
have shown, baseless. So in turn, then, is the claim that rising carbon dioxide will lead to
such disasters as flooding and starvation. But to appreciate the full extent to which
environmentalists are willing to evade known facts, consider, briefly, the evidence about
these claimed disasters.
In general, history shows that a warm climate is not bad, but good, for man. As mentioned
earlier, our temperature today is near the warm end of the natural range. Man has
enjoyed this warm climate for a mere ten thousand years. Even within this generally warm
period, there have been times of colder temperatures, which have been disastrous for the
human race. The Little Ice Age (1100 to 1750 A.D.) coincided with famines, storms,
floods, and plagues. Prior to the Little Ice Age was a warm period called the Little
Optimum during which grapes were grown in England, and the Vikings sailed across the
calm and icefree North Atlantic. In general, man should welcome, not fear, a warm climate.
The first specific disaster claim is flooding of vast areas due to melting glaciers. An article
by two prominent ecologists in the January, 1989, issue of Scientific American proclaimed:
"Glaciers are melting. Sea level is rising." Further, it implied that before long Florida would
be inundated under twentyfive feet of sea water! Such claims are blatant deceptions.
(They also show that even this respected and supposedly scientific publication cannot be
trusted to report the facts objectively.)
The vast continental ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, which hold most of the
earth's ice, are not shrinking but growing, which would tend to cause a lowering of sea
level. Field measurements on the Antarctic ice sheet suggest a net accumulation of snow
and ice since the 1960's equivalent to a lowering of sea level by 0.5 to 1.2 millimeters per
year. 14 Satellite measurements of the Greenland ice sheet over the past ten years
suggest accumulation of snow and ice equivalent to a lowering of sea level by about 0.45
millimeters per year. The claim that ice sheets are melting is simply false.
Here again we see the anticontextual approach typical of environmentalism. That
"glaciers are melting" is true only in a severely limited sense, i.e., only when it is taken out
of the context in which it is actually asserted. Glaciers, which are small bodies of ice
compared to the ice sheets, are constantly melting at one end and growing at the other.
But the statement is meant to suggest that as a whole the world's ice is melting faster than
it is accumulating. The purpose of this method is to allow an author the appearance of
telling the truth while he is actually conveying a lie.
Similarly, the claim that sea level is rising is true in a very limited sense, but false when
taken in context. Sea level is rising; however, it has been rising since the last ice age,
when man could walk from France to England, from Siberia to Alaska, and from Thailand
to Java. At the peak of the last ice age, roughly eighteen thousand years ago, the sea
was four hundred feet below its present level. 15 The rate of rise has varied. Ten
thousand years ago, it was rising very quickly, by about eight feet per century. In more
recent millenia, the rate has slowed significantly. Whoever says "The sea level is rising!"
can hide behind the fact that the words are, in a very limited sense, true; but he is
implying that this is abnormal, which is false.
Measurements indicate a sea level increase from 1880 to 1980 of about two millimeters
per year, or about eight inches per century. 16 This observed rise can be completely
explained by natural processes that have been at work for eons. Further, to claim an
imminent catastrophic rise on the order of twentyfive feet or more is preposterous. At the
rate of two millimeters per year, it would take about four thousand years to accumulate a
rise of twentyfive feet.
Of course, global warming advocates claim that the rate of sea level rise will accelerate
due to rapidly rising temperatures. But, as shown above, there is no support for claims of
any abnormally fast temperature increases caused by man. The only evidence on this
issue is that the world's ice is growing, not melting, and that sea level rises are small and
completely normal.
(4) Major crop disasters will occur if carbon dioxide emissions are not curbed.
A second disaster usually associated with global warming is widespread crop failures.
"The world is warming. Climatic zones are shifting," reports the previously cited article in
Scientific American. According to Time magazine in its "Planet of the Year" issue January
2,1989): "[In 1988] a threemonth drought baked the soil from California to Georgia,
reducing the country's grain harvest by 31 percent and killing thousands of head of
livestock. A stubborn sevenweek heat wave drove temperatures above 100°F across
much of the country, raising fears that the dreaded 'greenhouse effect' . . . might already
be under way.... Changing weather patterns could make huge areas infertile or
uninhabitable, touching off refugee movements unprecedented in history.... There is a
strong likelihood of mass starvation."
Here again, these disaster claims are not just unsubstantiated, but contradict a large body
of evidence.
The details of how plants would react to rises in average temperatures are poorly
understood. In general, plants that are accustomed to a particular temperature range
would gradually shift their location away from the equator toward the poles to maintain the
same temperature. Thus, a place with a particular set of plants would become suitable for
plants that now grow closer to the equator. For example, the vegetation of Saskatchewan
would become more like South Dakota's, and that of St. Petersburg like Moldavia's.
Probably vast areas of northern Canada and Siberia would become arable. Meanwhile
some arid and semiarid regions might become too dry for agriculture. Whether the
benefits of such shifts in vegetation patterns would outweigh the disadvantages is not
known.
At least some global warming advocates acknowledge that warmer temperatures as such
are not a problem for vegetation. 17 But they go on to claim that temperatures will rise so
rapidly that plants will die out before they can take hold at higher latitudes. Again, there is
no valid basis for claiming such a disastrous increase in temperature.
Thus, there is no evidence that crops and other vegetation on balance, be damaged by
increasing carbon dioxide. There is, however, a great deal of evidence that more carbon
dioxide in the air will benefit plants. Extensive laboratory and field experiments show that
increased carbon dioxide encourages plant growth both by the "fertilization effect" and by
reducing transpiration. 18
The fertilization effect refers to the fact that green plants use carbon dioxide in the same
way they use fertilizer. Like any nutrient, carbon dioxide increases growth. For example,
for a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the harvestable yield of crops
increases an average of 33 percent. 19 Such an increase worldwide would be an
enormous benefit to mankind, and evidence shows that it has already begun. Studies of
wheat, soybeans, and tree rings show increases in growth that are most likely the result of
increased carbon dioxide.20
Transpiration is the loss of water from a plant to the atmosphere. Increased carbon
dioxide tends to close the pores that release water. Thus increased carbon dioxide makes
plants more efficient users of moisture and thereby better able to thrive in drier climates.
On the average, a doubling of carbon dioxide reduces a plant's need for water by 34
percent. 21 This is a major effect that would allow the cultivation of crops in many desert
regions.
The combined effect of the fertilization effect and reduced transpiration in the next century
would likely cause an enormous increase in crop yields.22 This truly amazing result is
completely ignored by environmentalists, and hence by the media. (Have you ever seen a
headline saying "Science Shows Burning of Fossil Fuels Greatly Benefits Plants"?)
Thus, the predictions of crop failures and mass starvation are, as the rest of the global
warming theory, wholly unsupported.
The environmentalist prediction of a global warming disaster is of a piece with other
environmentalist scare stories that turned out to have no factual basis-for example, the
claims that people were being poisoned by alartainted apples, or that nuclear power
plants would kill millions of people, or that man's activities were causing the onset of a new
ice age.
To determine whether temperatures have risen, scientists of course rely on temperature
measurements made by weather stations around the world. The most comprehensive
temperature data set contains a hundred million measurements, starting about 1861.
These data show an average temperature increase of 0.8°F since 1861. In light of known
inaccuracies in the measurements, many climatologists consider that there has been a
rise of 0.5 to 1.1°F for the last hundred years.3 (This figure, however, may be too high by
as much as half, because it does not take into account a factor known as "urban
warming." As population centers grow, weather stations become surrounded by local heat
sources, and thus their measurements show apparent warming even though no actual
warming has taken place. A study of North America, which counted only stations in rural
and remote areas, showed no increase in temperature over the last century.4 Whether
similar results would be found for the whole world is unknown.)
Global warming advocates proceed directly from the measured rise in temperature to the
assertion that increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the rise. Such a conclusion
arbitrarily ignores the abundant proof of other possible causes.
First, the temperature data for merely the last hundred years demonstrates that there are
other influences on the earth's temperature more important than carbon dioxide. If the
steady increases in carbon dioxide since the midnineteenth century were the main cause
of any temperature changes over the same period, there should have been a steady
warming of the earth. In fact, however, the temperature history shows large fluctuations.
From about 1860 to 1910 there was a decrease of about 0.2°F. From 1910 to 1938 there
was a large increase of 0.9°F. From 1938 to 1970 there was a decrease of 0.4°F. And
from 1970 to 1990 there was an increase of about 0.5°F. Such fluctuations cannot be
explained by rising carbon dioxide. For example, the large increase from 1910 to 1938
occurred when carbon dioxide levels were relatively low and going up slowly compared to
today. Further, the decrease from 1940 to 1970 occurred despite increasing carbon
dioxide. (Because urban warming causes only a relatively constant upward bias, these
fluctuations would essentially remain, even if the data could be corrected for urban
warming.) Clearly, major causal factors other than carbon dioxide are involved.
Even more telling, however, is the billions of years of naturally caused temperature
changes. It is well known that the temperature of the earth has fluctuated widely over
geologic time. 5 Over the last one million years the earth's temperature has varied by
13°F. In the most recent ten thousand years, our temperature has been near the warm
end of the natural range. We are in what is called an "interglacial" period in a longterm,
millionyearold glacial period. Even within this generally warm tenthousandyear period,
there have been large variations. Just in the last one thousand years, temperatures have
varied by 9°F-a variation more than ten fumes the 0.8°F rise claimed for the twentieth
century. The temperature change since the onset of the Industrial Revolution is thus fully
within the range of the earth's natural variations.
Moreover, the large historical variations obviously are the result of causes which have
nothing to do with man's burning of fossil fuels. Scientists are just beginning to investigate
what these causes might be. Two phenomena warranting study are: changes in solar
radiation and variations in heat from the interior of the earth.
It makes sense that differences in the sun's radiation should affect the temperature of the
earth, and there is some observational evidence to support this explanation. For example,
the Little Ice Age, which occurred between 1100 and 1750 A.D., coincided with a period
during which sunspots were nearly absent.6 Sunspots are giant eruptions on the sun's
surface. During periods of increased sunspot activity, increased solar energy reaches the
earth.
Until recently, no one has been able to show a close statistical correlation between the
sun's radiation and the earth's temperature. However, in the November 1,1991, issue of
Science magazine, a remarkable correlation was reported.7 Two Danish scientists
devised a new measure of the sun's radiation, the reciprocal of the length of the sunspot
cycle. The idea-which is still far from proven-is that higher frequency of sunspots
represents more intense radiation. The correlation coefficient (0.95) between this
measure of solar radiation and the global earth surface temperature is extraordinary,
probably the highest ever recorded in this field. (A correlation coefficient of zero indicates
no correlation, whereas a correlation coefficient of one indicates a perfect correlation. So,
0.95 is a nearperfect correlation.)
Another, even less well understood process affecting the earth's temperature is heat from
the interior of the earth. Possibly the largest source of such heat is from eruptions on the
ocean floor at midocean ridges. For example, there is evidence that in 1965 an eruption
in the Pacific covered an area of ocean floor greater than the area of Brooklyn (eighty
square miles) with lava an average of 220 feet thick. Yet it was not observed at the time.8
No one knows how frequently such eruptions occur, but the heat involved is enormous
and would probably affect the atmosphere. (Only a handful of scientists are studying such
effects. By contrast, thousands of scientists are examining the greenhouse effect.
Due to the influence of environmentalism, research money-most of it government
funds-tends to go only to those causes which can be blamed on man's productive
activities.)
In short, it is known with certainty that factors unrelated to increasing carbon dioxide have
large effects on the earth's temperature, that temperatures have risen and fallen
irrespective of changes in carbon dioxide, and that the last century's temperature rise is
well within the range of the earth's natural variations. To attribute the rise of the last
century to increased carbon dioxide is wholly unwarranted.
(2) Temperatures will rise three to nine degrees Fahrenheit over the next
century, if greenhouse gases continue to increase at projected rates.
If scientists do not understand what causes have led to past changes in the earth's
temperature, they surely cannot predict the earth's temperature a hundred years from
now. But this does not stop environmentalists from forecasting a 3 to 9°F rise. This
prediction is the central claim of the global warming theory.
Environmentalists base their prediction on computer programs called "general circulation
models" (GCMs). These models are computer "experiments" that attempt to mimic the
response of the earth's surface and atmosphere to increased carbon dioxide. Various
groups of climatologists, over the last ten to fifteen years, have refined these models until
they are now highly sophisticated. Today, most models predict a warming of 3.4 to 9.4°F
for a doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The first thing to note about GCMs is that they are not models in the sense of smallscale
replicas of the real world, but merely calculating devices, which are only as good as the
equations and input data which make them up. Because most of the causes of the earth's
climate are still unknown, the equations and data of the GCMs are necessarily very
incomplete. This alone is more than enough to show that they cannot be relied upon.
Further, where relevant facts which would conflict with desired results from the models are
known, global warming theorists simply ignore them. Probably the largest example of this
is the models' treatment of clouds and water vapor.
Radiative cooling occurs when energy leaves a body in the form of electromagnetic
radiation. Convective cooling, by contrast, occurs when some of the motion of the
molecules in a body is directly transferred to molecules outside the body. Many GCMs
overestimate the effect of radiative cooling and underestimate the effect of convective
cooling. As everyone knows, a person loses more heat in damp windy weather than when
it is dry and still. In dry, still weather one loses heat only by radiative cooling. In damp,
windy weather one loses additional heat by convection. The GCMs, in effect, consider the
earth only in still, dry weather. They ignore the "wind chill factor" of convection. A figure
illustrating the earth's heat budget by a famous climate modeler, Stephen Schneider,
shows virtually all the outgoing heat leaving the earth by radiation.9 In contrast, a
greenhouse "skeptic," Richard Lindzen, shows a more accurate picture with much of the
earth's emitted radiation absorbed, transported, and reemitted by clouds and water
vapor through convection. 10
The significance of this difference is enormous. Clouds and water vapor act as a kind of
short circuit to the greenhouse effect. Whereas greenhouse gases block the outgoing
radiative heat from leaving the earth, clouds and water vapor can physically move with the
winds and carry the same heat away from the earth regardless of any greenhouse gases.
The trump card here is that increased heating of the earth probably would increase winds
and thereby increase convective transport away from the earth. This is what is called
negative feedback: the hotter the earth gets, the more it cools off. Thus convection may
act as a giant thermostat keeping the earth at a relatively constant temperature.
The effect of differences in the way clouds and water vapor are treated has been
extensively discussed in the scientific literature. Several scientists have pointed out that
the GCMs indicate a positive feedback, when a negative feedback is more appropriate.11
The importance of this factor is illustrated by one research team that tested several
climate models that differed only in the way clouds and water vapor were handled. The
predicted temperature change was 3.4°F in one model and 9.4°F in another. 12 Thus,
seemingly minor adjustments in input led to a difference in output of six degrees-a
difference greater than the entire temperature increase predicted by most of the models.
GCMs consist essentially of the same equations and input as the computer programs that
still cannot accurately predict even next week's weather. To claim that these computer
programs prove that temperatures will rise by three to nine degrees over the next century
is nothing short of a fantasy.
The whole idea of using these models to predict future temperatures captures the
essence of the arbitrary and anticontextual methodology of the global warming theorists.
It is known that carbon dioxide is one of the gases which trap the earth's heat and keep
the globe at 59°F rather than 0°F. Thus, it is a possibility that, absent any other factors,
an increase in carbon dioxide would have some upward effect on temperatures. But it is
certain that there are other far more important factors, and precisely how these affect the
earth's temperature is unknown. The designers of these models purport to study the
complex and poorly understood system which regulates the earth's temperature by taking
only one isolated aspect of it (namely, carbon dioxide), building a computer program on
the basis of this one aspect, ignoring that there are other aspects completely left out of
the program, and arbitrarily claiming that their "model" represents the real world. Thus,
their method is a perfect example of the fallacy of contextdropping. The results of
contextdropping, explained by Leonard Peikoff, are as follows: "Whenever one treats a
conclusion as an atom unrelated to the rest of cognition, one thereby detaches the
conclusion, along with the thought process involving it, from reality. If one drops context,
one drops the means of distinguishing between truth and fantasy; anyone can then claim
to prove anything, however absurd." 13 The fallacy is an ideal tool for those who wish to
give a veneer of scientific objectivity to claims which have no basis in reality.
(3) Carbon dioxide increases are causing glaciers to melt and sea level to rise.
The assertion that increasing carbon dioxide is leading to rising temperatures is, as we
have shown, baseless. So in turn, then, is the claim that rising carbon dioxide will lead to
such disasters as flooding and starvation. But to appreciate the full extent to which
environmentalists are willing to evade known facts, consider, briefly, the evidence about
these claimed disasters.
In general, history shows that a warm climate is not bad, but good, for man. As mentioned
earlier, our temperature today is near the warm end of the natural range. Man has
enjoyed this warm climate for a mere ten thousand years. Even within this generally warm
period, there have been times of colder temperatures, which have been disastrous for the
human race. The Little Ice Age (1100 to 1750 A.D.) coincided with famines, storms,
floods, and plagues. Prior to the Little Ice Age was a warm period called the Little
Optimum during which grapes were grown in England, and the Vikings sailed across the
calm and icefree North Atlantic. In general, man should welcome, not fear, a warm climate.
The first specific disaster claim is flooding of vast areas due to melting glaciers. An article
by two prominent ecologists in the January, 1989, issue of Scientific American proclaimed:
"Glaciers are melting. Sea level is rising." Further, it implied that before long Florida would
be inundated under twentyfive feet of sea water! Such claims are blatant deceptions.
(They also show that even this respected and supposedly scientific publication cannot be
trusted to report the facts objectively.)
The vast continental ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, which hold most of the
earth's ice, are not shrinking but growing, which would tend to cause a lowering of sea
level. Field measurements on the Antarctic ice sheet suggest a net accumulation of snow
and ice since the 1960's equivalent to a lowering of sea level by 0.5 to 1.2 millimeters per
year. 14 Satellite measurements of the Greenland ice sheet over the past ten years
suggest accumulation of snow and ice equivalent to a lowering of sea level by about 0.45
millimeters per year. The claim that ice sheets are melting is simply false.
Here again we see the anticontextual approach typical of environmentalism. That
"glaciers are melting" is true only in a severely limited sense, i.e., only when it is taken out
of the context in which it is actually asserted. Glaciers, which are small bodies of ice
compared to the ice sheets, are constantly melting at one end and growing at the other.
But the statement is meant to suggest that as a whole the world's ice is melting faster than
it is accumulating. The purpose of this method is to allow an author the appearance of
telling the truth while he is actually conveying a lie.
Similarly, the claim that sea level is rising is true in a very limited sense, but false when
taken in context. Sea level is rising; however, it has been rising since the last ice age,
when man could walk from France to England, from Siberia to Alaska, and from Thailand
to Java. At the peak of the last ice age, roughly eighteen thousand years ago, the sea
was four hundred feet below its present level. 15 The rate of rise has varied. Ten
thousand years ago, it was rising very quickly, by about eight feet per century. In more
recent millenia, the rate has slowed significantly. Whoever says "The sea level is rising!"
can hide behind the fact that the words are, in a very limited sense, true; but he is
implying that this is abnormal, which is false.
Measurements indicate a sea level increase from 1880 to 1980 of about two millimeters
per year, or about eight inches per century. 16 This observed rise can be completely
explained by natural processes that have been at work for eons. Further, to claim an
imminent catastrophic rise on the order of twentyfive feet or more is preposterous. At the
rate of two millimeters per year, it would take about four thousand years to accumulate a
rise of twentyfive feet.
Of course, global warming advocates claim that the rate of sea level rise will accelerate
due to rapidly rising temperatures. But, as shown above, there is no support for claims of
any abnormally fast temperature increases caused by man. The only evidence on this
issue is that the world's ice is growing, not melting, and that sea level rises are small and
completely normal.
(4) Major crop disasters will occur if carbon dioxide emissions are not curbed.
A second disaster usually associated with global warming is widespread crop failures.
"The world is warming. Climatic zones are shifting," reports the previously cited article in
Scientific American. According to Time magazine in its "Planet of the Year" issue January
2,1989): "[In 1988] a threemonth drought baked the soil from California to Georgia,
reducing the country's grain harvest by 31 percent and killing thousands of head of
livestock. A stubborn sevenweek heat wave drove temperatures above 100°F across
much of the country, raising fears that the dreaded 'greenhouse effect' . . . might already
be under way.... Changing weather patterns could make huge areas infertile or
uninhabitable, touching off refugee movements unprecedented in history.... There is a
strong likelihood of mass starvation."
Here again, these disaster claims are not just unsubstantiated, but contradict a large body
of evidence.
The details of how plants would react to rises in average temperatures are poorly
understood. In general, plants that are accustomed to a particular temperature range
would gradually shift their location away from the equator toward the poles to maintain the
same temperature. Thus, a place with a particular set of plants would become suitable for
plants that now grow closer to the equator. For example, the vegetation of Saskatchewan
would become more like South Dakota's, and that of St. Petersburg like Moldavia's.
Probably vast areas of northern Canada and Siberia would become arable. Meanwhile
some arid and semiarid regions might become too dry for agriculture. Whether the
benefits of such shifts in vegetation patterns would outweigh the disadvantages is not
known.
At least some global warming advocates acknowledge that warmer temperatures as such
are not a problem for vegetation. 17 But they go on to claim that temperatures will rise so
rapidly that plants will die out before they can take hold at higher latitudes. Again, there is
no valid basis for claiming such a disastrous increase in temperature.
Thus, there is no evidence that crops and other vegetation on balance, be damaged by
increasing carbon dioxide. There is, however, a great deal of evidence that more carbon
dioxide in the air will benefit plants. Extensive laboratory and field experiments show that
increased carbon dioxide encourages plant growth both by the "fertilization effect" and by
reducing transpiration. 18
The fertilization effect refers to the fact that green plants use carbon dioxide in the same
way they use fertilizer. Like any nutrient, carbon dioxide increases growth. For example,
for a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the harvestable yield of crops
increases an average of 33 percent. 19 Such an increase worldwide would be an
enormous benefit to mankind, and evidence shows that it has already begun. Studies of
wheat, soybeans, and tree rings show increases in growth that are most likely the result of
increased carbon dioxide.20
Transpiration is the loss of water from a plant to the atmosphere. Increased carbon
dioxide tends to close the pores that release water. Thus increased carbon dioxide makes
plants more efficient users of moisture and thereby better able to thrive in drier climates.
On the average, a doubling of carbon dioxide reduces a plant's need for water by 34
percent. 21 This is a major effect that would allow the cultivation of crops in many desert
regions.
The combined effect of the fertilization effect and reduced transpiration in the next century
would likely cause an enormous increase in crop yields.22 This truly amazing result is
completely ignored by environmentalists, and hence by the media. (Have you ever seen a
headline saying "Science Shows Burning of Fossil Fuels Greatly Benefits Plants"?)
Thus, the predictions of crop failures and mass starvation are, as the rest of the global
warming theory, wholly unsupported.
The environmentalist prediction of a global warming disaster is of a piece with other
environmentalist scare stories that turned out to have no factual basis-for example, the
claims that people were being poisoned by alartainted apples, or that nuclear power
plants would kill millions of people, or that man's activities were causing the onset of a new
ice age.
- === REFERENCES ===
IR.S. Lindzen, "Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming," Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society, 1990, v. 71, pp. 288299. 2U. Siegenthaler and H. Oeschger,
"Biospheric CO2 Emissions During the Past 200 Years Reconstructed by Deconvolution
of Ice Core Data,° Tellus, 1987, v. 39B, pp. 140154; National Academy of Science, Policy
Implications of Greenhouse Warming (National Academy Press: 1991), pp. 1012.
(Abbreviated PIGW.) 3PIGW, p. 2. 4G. Kukla, J. Gavin, and T.R. Karl, "Urban Warming,"
Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology, 1986, v. 25, pp. 12651270; H.F. Diaz, "An
Analysis of Twentieth Century Climate Fluctuahons in Northern North America," ibid; S.B.
Idso, "Historical Trends in the United States and the Effect of Urban Population Growth,"
Journal of Geophysical Research, 2989, v. 94, pp. 33593363. 5PIGW, p. 22. 6J.A. Eddy,
"Climate and the Changing Sun," Climatic Change, 1977, v. 1, pp. 173190. 7E.
FriisChristensen and K. Lassen, "Length of the Solar Cycle: An Indicator of Solar Activity
Closely Associated With Climate," Science, 1991, v. 254, pp. 698700. 8J Cann,
"Seafloor Volcano Erupts Ideas," Nature, 1989, v. 337, pp. 603604. 9S.H. Schneider,
"The Changing Climate," Scientific American, September, 1989, pp. 7079. 10Lindzen,
1990. 1l R.C.J. Somerville and L.A. Remer, "Cloud Optical Depth Feedbacks in the CO2
Climate Problem," Journal of Geophysical Research, 1984, v. 89, pp. 96689672; Q.
HendersonSellers, "Increasing Cloud in a Warming World," Climatic Change, 1986, v. 9,
pp. 267309; E. Roeckner, U. Schlese, J. Biercamp, and P. Loewe, "Cloud Optical Depth
Feedbacks and Climate Modelling," Nature, 1987, v. 329, pp. 138140. 12J.F.B. Mitchell,
C.A.Senior, and W.J. Ingram, "CO2 and Climate: A Missing Feedback?" Nature, 1989, v.
341, pp. 132134. 13L. Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (Dutton: 1991),
pp. 123125. 14Meier, 1990; V.l. Morgan, I.D. Goodwin, D.M. Etheridge, and C.W.
Wookey, "Evidence from Antarctic Ice Cores for Recent Increases in Snow Accumulahon,"
Nature, 1991, v. 354, pp. 5860. ISR.G. Fairbanks, "A 17,000year Glacioeustatic Sea
Level Record," Nature, 1989, v. 342, pp. 637642. 16M.F. Meier, "Reduced Rise in Sea
Level," Nature, 1990, v. 343, p. 115. B.C. Douglas, "Global Sea Level Rise," Journal of
Geophysical Research-Oceans, 1991, in press, p. 14. 17For example, the March
24,1992, Los Angeles Times quotes J. Firor, director of advanced studies at the National
Center for Atmospheric Research: "The problem with global warming is not hanng a
warmer earth. If you look back over geological times, the earth has been sometimes
warmer and somehmes cooler.... What we need to do is make sure we don't force a
climate change that is too fast for natural systems to adapt to." 18N.J. Rosenberg, "The
Increasing CO2 Concentration in the Atmosphere and Its Implicahon on Agricultural
ProducEvity," Climatic Change, 1981, v. 3, pp. 265 279; J.l.L. Monson and R.M. Gifford,
"Plant Growth and Water Use With Limited Water Supply m High CO2 Concentrations,"
"Plant Dry Weight, Parhhonmg and Water Use Efficiency," Australian Journal of Plant
Physiology, 1984, v. 11, pp. 361374; S.B. Idso, Carbon Dioxide and Global Change:
Earth in Transition (IBR Press: 1989), p. 67ff. 191dso, 1989, p. 68. 201dso, 1989, pp.
108110. 211dso, 1989, p 69. 221dso, 1989, p. 69. 2~Colligan, Douglas, "Brace Yourself
for Another Ice Age," Science Digest, February 1973. 2 Quoted in S.W. Matthews, "What's
Happening to Our Climate?" National Geographic, November, 1976. 25L. Ponte, The
Cooling, 1976.
| Spring 2008 in Canada |
Global Warming:
All Smoke and No Heat
by Richard F. Sanford
Dr. Sanford, who received his Ph.D. in geology from Harvard University in 1978, is a
research geologist at a national laboratory and the founder of the Society for Objective
Science
(Published in the March, 1992 Intellectual Activist)
Environmentalists claim that the burning of fossil fuels is leading to a heating of the
earth's atmosphere. This "global warming" is supposed to cause a rising sea level, the
flooding of huge lowlying areas such as Bangladesh and Florida, widespread droughts,
and worldwide crop failures. The consequences would be refugee movements on a scale
unknown in history, massive destruction of property, and innumerable deaths from
starvation and other causes.
These claims come not from fortunetellers and other recognized quacks, but from
scientists. They are reported in the science pages of such mainstream publications as
The New York Times and Time, and repeated in classrooms and on national television
documentaries. As a result, most people accept global warming as an established fact,
and world political leaders are about to take action to stop the alleged disaster.
The largest gathering ever held on environmentalist issues-the United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)-will take place in Rio de Janeiro
this June. Its main objective is to halt global warming by curbing emissions of carbon
dioxide (a product of the burning of fossil fuels). Particular proposals include regulations
forcing people to use bicycles instead of cars, and the nationalization of transportation
systems. Most of the world's countries, including the United States, are preparing to sign a
treaty enacting international legal limits on carbon dioxide emissions.
The unquestioned acceptance by most people of the global warming scenario assumes
the validity of the scientific claims. In fact, however, the theory is completely unsupported;
it amounts to a perversion of science for political ends. While carefully selected facts
surround it with an aura of plausibility, "the whole truth" is that the global warming disaster
is a fiction.
Primarily two facts lend plausibility to the theory: the "greenhouse effect," and increasing
amounts of carbon dioxide in the air.
The greenhouse effect refers to the trapping of heat by certain gases in the earth's
atmosphere. The average surface temperature of the globe is a comfortable 59°F;without
the greenhouse effect it would be 0°F, and the earth's surface would be frozen solid. 1
The main greenhouse gas is water vapor. Carbon dioxide is second in importance and
relatively minor. Other greenhouse gases are methane, chlorofluorocarbons, nitrous
oxide, and ozone. The earth's temperature is controlled by the balance between incoming
and outgoing energy. Because greenhouse gases block heat but not light, they allow
most incoming sunlight to pass though the atmosphere uninterrupted, but trap the
outgoing heat emitted by the earth. Thus, greenhouse gases act like a blanket to retain
the sun's energy and warm the earth.
The second fact is that the concentration of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse
gases) in the atmosphere has risen since the midnineteenth century. Because the
burning of fossil fuel releases carbon dioxide into the air, and such burning has
accelerated since the Industrial Revolution, the increased concentration is probably
manmade.
Measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been carried out on the summit
of Mauna Loa, in Hawaii, since 1958. They show a steady growth in concentration, from
315 parts per million in 1958 to over 350 parts per million today. (These concentrations
are so low that even a much greater increase in carbon dioxide would pose no
conceivable direct threat to human health.) By analyzing the composition of air bubbles
trapped in the ice of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets before the Industrial
Revolution, scientists have further determined that the concentration then was 280 parts
per million. 2 Thus, the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased 25 percent since
the onset of the Industrial Revolution. (Concentrations of methane, CFCs, and nitrous
oxides have also risen, equivalent to a total effective growth in carbon dioxide of 38
percent.)
Based on these two facts, the theory of global warming makes the following four claims.
(1) Warming due to carbon dioxide increases has already begun. (2) If greenhouse gases
continue to increase at projected rates, temperatures will rise three to nine degrees
Fahrenheit over the next century. (3) Carbon dioxide increases are causing glaciers to
melt and sea level to rise. (4) Major crop disasters will occur if carbon dioxide emissions
are not curbed. Consider the stark absence of the scientific evidence for each of these
claims.
All Smoke and No Heat
by Richard F. Sanford
Dr. Sanford, who received his Ph.D. in geology from Harvard University in 1978, is a
research geologist at a national laboratory and the founder of the Society for Objective
Science
(Published in the March, 1992 Intellectual Activist)
Environmentalists claim that the burning of fossil fuels is leading to a heating of the
earth's atmosphere. This "global warming" is supposed to cause a rising sea level, the
flooding of huge lowlying areas such as Bangladesh and Florida, widespread droughts,
and worldwide crop failures. The consequences would be refugee movements on a scale
unknown in history, massive destruction of property, and innumerable deaths from
starvation and other causes.
These claims come not from fortunetellers and other recognized quacks, but from
scientists. They are reported in the science pages of such mainstream publications as
The New York Times and Time, and repeated in classrooms and on national television
documentaries. As a result, most people accept global warming as an established fact,
and world political leaders are about to take action to stop the alleged disaster.
The largest gathering ever held on environmentalist issues-the United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)-will take place in Rio de Janeiro
this June. Its main objective is to halt global warming by curbing emissions of carbon
dioxide (a product of the burning of fossil fuels). Particular proposals include regulations
forcing people to use bicycles instead of cars, and the nationalization of transportation
systems. Most of the world's countries, including the United States, are preparing to sign a
treaty enacting international legal limits on carbon dioxide emissions.
The unquestioned acceptance by most people of the global warming scenario assumes
the validity of the scientific claims. In fact, however, the theory is completely unsupported;
it amounts to a perversion of science for political ends. While carefully selected facts
surround it with an aura of plausibility, "the whole truth" is that the global warming disaster
is a fiction.
Primarily two facts lend plausibility to the theory: the "greenhouse effect," and increasing
amounts of carbon dioxide in the air.
The greenhouse effect refers to the trapping of heat by certain gases in the earth's
atmosphere. The average surface temperature of the globe is a comfortable 59°F;without
the greenhouse effect it would be 0°F, and the earth's surface would be frozen solid. 1
The main greenhouse gas is water vapor. Carbon dioxide is second in importance and
relatively minor. Other greenhouse gases are methane, chlorofluorocarbons, nitrous
oxide, and ozone. The earth's temperature is controlled by the balance between incoming
and outgoing energy. Because greenhouse gases block heat but not light, they allow
most incoming sunlight to pass though the atmosphere uninterrupted, but trap the
outgoing heat emitted by the earth. Thus, greenhouse gases act like a blanket to retain
the sun's energy and warm the earth.
The second fact is that the concentration of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse
gases) in the atmosphere has risen since the midnineteenth century. Because the
burning of fossil fuel releases carbon dioxide into the air, and such burning has
accelerated since the Industrial Revolution, the increased concentration is probably
manmade.
Measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been carried out on the summit
of Mauna Loa, in Hawaii, since 1958. They show a steady growth in concentration, from
315 parts per million in 1958 to over 350 parts per million today. (These concentrations
are so low that even a much greater increase in carbon dioxide would pose no
conceivable direct threat to human health.) By analyzing the composition of air bubbles
trapped in the ice of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets before the Industrial
Revolution, scientists have further determined that the concentration then was 280 parts
per million. 2 Thus, the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased 25 percent since
the onset of the Industrial Revolution. (Concentrations of methane, CFCs, and nitrous
oxides have also risen, equivalent to a total effective growth in carbon dioxide of 38
percent.)
Based on these two facts, the theory of global warming makes the following four claims.
(1) Warming due to carbon dioxide increases has already begun. (2) If greenhouse gases
continue to increase at projected rates, temperatures will rise three to nine degrees
Fahrenheit over the next century. (3) Carbon dioxide increases are causing glaciers to
melt and sea level to rise. (4) Major crop disasters will occur if carbon dioxide emissions
are not curbed. Consider the stark absence of the scientific evidence for each of these
claims.
posted: July 27, 2008
|
|
This last example is particularly illuminating. Twenty years ago, the temperature data
showed a cooling trend-the earliermentioned drop of 0.4°F from 1938 to 1970. And it is
known, as an isolated causal connection (like the greenhouse effect), that particulates in
air pollution reflect sunlight, and thus heat, away from the earth. The same mentality that
alleges global warming would conclude from these two facts that man is causing a cooling
of the earth's climate. Indeed, in the 1970s a new ice age was widely predicted by
environmentalist doomsayers.
As reported in 1973 by Science Digest: "At this point, the world's climatologists are agreed
on only two things: that we do not have the comfortable distance of tens of thousands of
years to prepare for the next ice age, and that how carefully we monitor our atmospheric
pollution will have direct bearing on the arrival and nature of this weather crisis. The
sooner man confronts these facts, these scientists say, the safer he'll be. C'nce the freeze
starts, it will be too late." 23 Scientific panels predicted, for example, that "[a permanent
drop of only 1.6 to 2 percent in energy reaching the earth] would lead to an unstable
condition in which continental snow cover would advance to the Equator . . . [and] the
oceans would eventually freeze."24 A book called The Cooling proph esied "world famine,
world chaos, and probably world war, and this could all come by the year 2000." 25 Again,
by the anticontextual method, one can claim to prove any assertion, no matter how
absurd.
The fact that environmentalists are willing to put forth such arbitrary claims, totally
unsupported by any evidence, shows that for them, science has nothing to do with
objectivity, or with facts. Rather, in the hands of environmentalists, science has become a
means of rationalizing attacks on the Industrial Revolution and on man. Their goal is not
truth, but the wiping out of industrial development, technology, capitalism, and freedom.
The global warming disaster-whose purpose is to undercut energy production, without
which there would be no industrial civilization-is only the latest example.
If there is to be a chance for freedom, and hence for man's happiness on earth, these
new tyrants must be stopped. The upcoming UNCED conference provides an opportunity
to oppose them. Congress is holding hearings on the United States' strategy for the
conference, and environmentalists are urging President Bush to attend. Tell your elected
officials that the United States should lend no support to this antihuman conference.
Those who value reason and man's life must speak out and expose environmentalism as
the emperor's newest clothes.
showed a cooling trend-the earliermentioned drop of 0.4°F from 1938 to 1970. And it is
known, as an isolated causal connection (like the greenhouse effect), that particulates in
air pollution reflect sunlight, and thus heat, away from the earth. The same mentality that
alleges global warming would conclude from these two facts that man is causing a cooling
of the earth's climate. Indeed, in the 1970s a new ice age was widely predicted by
environmentalist doomsayers.
As reported in 1973 by Science Digest: "At this point, the world's climatologists are agreed
on only two things: that we do not have the comfortable distance of tens of thousands of
years to prepare for the next ice age, and that how carefully we monitor our atmospheric
pollution will have direct bearing on the arrival and nature of this weather crisis. The
sooner man confronts these facts, these scientists say, the safer he'll be. C'nce the freeze
starts, it will be too late." 23 Scientific panels predicted, for example, that "[a permanent
drop of only 1.6 to 2 percent in energy reaching the earth] would lead to an unstable
condition in which continental snow cover would advance to the Equator . . . [and] the
oceans would eventually freeze."24 A book called The Cooling proph esied "world famine,
world chaos, and probably world war, and this could all come by the year 2000." 25 Again,
by the anticontextual method, one can claim to prove any assertion, no matter how
absurd.
The fact that environmentalists are willing to put forth such arbitrary claims, totally
unsupported by any evidence, shows that for them, science has nothing to do with
objectivity, or with facts. Rather, in the hands of environmentalists, science has become a
means of rationalizing attacks on the Industrial Revolution and on man. Their goal is not
truth, but the wiping out of industrial development, technology, capitalism, and freedom.
The global warming disaster-whose purpose is to undercut energy production, without
which there would be no industrial civilization-is only the latest example.
If there is to be a chance for freedom, and hence for man's happiness on earth, these
new tyrants must be stopped. The upcoming UNCED conference provides an opportunity
to oppose them. Congress is holding hearings on the United States' strategy for the
conference, and environmentalists are urging President Bush to attend. Tell your elected
officials that the United States should lend no support to this antihuman conference.
Those who value reason and man's life must speak out and expose environmentalism as
the emperor's newest clothes.
|
| Summer 2008 in Alaska |