Global warming

A composite map of Antarctica showing areas of greatest warming in red, other colors indicate cooling. The Wilkins Ice Shelf lies off the peninsula in the top left corner, and shows extensive warming. Overall, Antarctica shows more cooling than warming, especially in the east, the area to the right.

Global warming, scientifically speaking, is a worldwide increase in atmospheric temperature. What's really interesting is what causes it: i.e., is it more due to natural causes or man-made activity (see Global warming theory). This type of climate change is seen as a period of increases in global temperature, which is alternating with periods of global cooling, and is a natural occurrence as part of an interval warming trend which has occurred multiple times throughout Earth's geological history. Liberal claims of global warming led to the resignation in October 2010 by Professor Hal Lewis from The American Physical Society because of "the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist."

Many political activists use the term "global warming" to refer the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW), which asserts that human activity such as spewing "greenhouse gases" is causing more temperature increase than all natural causes combined. The AGW theory is supported by left-leaning political parties, as well as a majority of sovereign states, national agencies, and an intergovernmental panel (see IPCC). The reality is that there is no global crisis, despite dire warning by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Predictions made by climate models publicized by the IPCC have not come to pass, and the climate has shown a mild cooling since 1995.

In November 2009, emails were disclosed that demonstrated wrongful manipulation and concealment of data by scientists who have insisted that there is dangerous man-made global warming. Prior to ClimateGate, both the Republican and Democratic party Platforms in 2008 suggested that global warming is happening, that it is caused by human activity, and that it should be counteracted. For example, in 2007, the Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain called global warming "an issue we can no longer afford to ignore".

The idea of dangerous anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW) is promoted by liberals and socialists seeking greater government control over the production and use of energy, which is a substantial percentage of the economy. In economic terms, they would like to 'internalize' the 'externality,' which is to say that they think that producers of emissions should be directly connected to the consequences of those emissions, leading syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer to warn of an impending Environmental Shakedown. The unsuccessful Democratic candidate for President in 2000, Al Gore, won a Nobel Prize in 2007 for claiming that there is a dangerous man-made global warming that threatens the world. Neither he nor his supporters admit that a rapid cooling in temperatures is being observed.

Numerous scientists, especially those outside of university faculties, have been critical of anthropogenic global warming, but their general lack of comparative credentials has led to agreement that, among authorities in scientific disciplines, there is a "scientific consensus" supporting their theory for greater government control. Global warming skeptics question whether there is a financial incentive for supporting research. Global warming skeptics charge that on most college campuses criticism of it is silenced or censored, and provide evidence of scientists skeptical of AGW being repressed.

Temperatures have been decreasing rapidly throughout this decade (as of 2009). Historically, natural periods of global warming and global cooling have alternated, and not long ago liberals were demanding more government control to combat an alleged cooling in temperatures, with some scientists warning of a possible ice age.

In 2008 86 evangelical pastors, including Rev. Dr.Rick Warren signed a statement titled "Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action", which called on Christians to acknowledge the moral importance of action to counteract man - made climate change. the statement includes specific support for market - based CO2 reductions such as a cap - and - trade program. In contrast, a group of evangelical scholars, comprised of scientists, economists and theologians, contend that the liberal view of pending catastrophe caused by climate change is misleading and/or exaggerated.

Presence of CO2

One of the primary concerns of Global Warming research is the increased presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Original claims stated that the increase in carbon dioxide - which is a greenhouse gas - were caused primarily through the burning of fossil fuels, and that such increases were the foremost cause of global temperatures rising. However, recent research has shown that the average global temperature and carbon dioxide do have a relationship, but that the relationship is the other way around. Global temperature changes precede changes in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to the increasing belief amongst the skeptical science community that global temperatures are causing carbion dioxide to increase in the atmosphere.

The most obvious way that this would occur would be through the evaporation of ocean water. The oceans are the single largest storage unit for carbon dioxide gas on the planet, containing about 93% of the Earth's carbon dioxide. As temperatures rise, ocean water evaporates, causing the dissolved carbon dioxide gas to enter the atmosphere, and begin trapping radiation from the sun. Scientists now believe that this cycle causes a sort of chain effect, where increased temperature causes more carbon dioxide to enter the atmosphere, which in turn causes more temperature rise. However, this discredits the idea that human contributions to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are significant enough to affect global climate change.

It is also noteworthy to point out that carbon dioxide, while not as abundant in the atmosphere, has a more significant effect on global warming than water vapor does. Carbon dioxide cannot form clouds, as water vapor does. When water vapor forms clouds, those clouds actually block some of the sun's radiation from reaching the Earth, causing water vapor to both contribute positively and negatively to global temperature rise. Carbon dioxide can only act as a greenhouse gas, causing the above mentioned cyclic effect.

The Modern Warm Period

The Average Earth surface air temperature has risen about 1° F since 1970. Studies have ruled out the possibility that errors in the measurements and sampling significantly affect the temperature trends detected over the past century. This accounts for spatial errors in the sampling and thus also incorporates errors associated with the urban-heating effect. According to Karl et al. (1993) "Results imply that the errors associated with century-scale trends of temperature are probably an order of magnitude smaller than the observed global warming of nearly 0.5°C per 100 years since the late nineteenth century"

According to temperature reconstruction made within an Old Earth paradigm, there have been many cycles of naturally-caused global warming and cooling over many millions of years (see climate cycles). Some scientists, including Richard Lindzen of MIT, Sallie Baliunas of Harvard and Fred Singer (independent), say that the recent warming could be part of another natural cycle or random fluctuations in the atmosphere. However, many scientists also think that human activities were most likely the cause of the the planet's recent warming.

Sun Spots

Sunspot activity may be a primary factor in climate fluctuations, according to Willie Soon, a researcher affiliated with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Harvard College Observatory. “The sun is a great driving force to climate change.” Soon said that there have been much greater temperature fluctuations due to sunspots in the past and that proponents of global warming need to consider the effects of sunspot activity on global temperatures. Brian Farrell, a Harvard meteorology professor, acknowledged a connection between sunspot activity and temperatures on the Earth, “A strong correlation between the amount of radioactive carbon and temperature from ice cores has shown that solar activity can affect temperature."

Politicization of the Issue

Environmentalists and their political allies have presented a one-sided, anti-scientific account of global warming. They have ignored natural warming cycles and suppressed evidence which contradicts their theories. They have viciously attacked the credibility of any scientist daring to contradict them, creating a climate of fear where only a tiny handful of scientists dare speak out.

Bill Gray wrote:

• The contrary views of the many warming skeptics have been largely ignored and their motives denigrated.
• The normal scientific process of objectively studying both sides of the question has not yet occurred.

Journalists in the West, dominated by liberal viewpoints, have painted a misleading picture of the science. They have publicized liberal slanders against scientists who dare to speak up against the fake "consensus"

Even organizations that are not normally biased towards leftist ideas have publicly supported the global warming theory. The oil company Exxon/Mobil official policy is that CO2 emissions pose risks to society and ecosystems. Exxon/Mobil has also committed to reducing their own CO2 emissions, and invested $600 million in algae based fuels.

Agencies of the United States Government such as NASA, EPA & NOAA give selected information that strongly supports the global warming theory. At the same time, they reject freedom of information requests to see the raw data. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for one example, states that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rising due to human activity, and that the surface of the Earth has warmed, on average, quickly over the last 50 years, even though North America cooled slightly. In 2008 The Bush Administration requested $4.1 billion dollars of taxpayer money from Congress to fund NOAA, a 7.7 percent increase from 2008.

The 2008 Democratic National Committee Platform states;

"We must end the tyranny of oil in our time. This immediate danger is eclipsed only by the longer - term threat from climate change"

and

"...climate change is not just an economic issue or an environmental concern - this is a national security crisis."

The 2008 Republican National Committee Platform states;

"The same human economic activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. While the scope and long-term consequences of this are the subject of ongoing scientific research, common sense dictates that the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today to reduce any impact on the environment."

There have also been some Conservatives, such as John Bliese, Ph.D., who at one point believed that global warming is a critical problem, and that Conservatism and environmental conservation are fully compatible. Speaking to those who are skeptical of global warming, in the Summer of 2001, he wrote, "[T]here is nothing conservative about denying scientific evidence."

On October 10, 2009, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham coauthored (with Democrat Senator John Kerry) an op ed piece in the New York Times which stated "Even climate change skeptics should recognize that reducing our dependence on foreign oil and increasing our energy efficiency strengthens our national security. Both of us served in the military. We know that sending nearly $800 million a day to sometimes-hostile oil-producing countries threatens our security. In the same way, many scientists warn that failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will lead to global instability and poverty that could put our nation at risk."

in 2008 the Center for Naval Analyses empaneled eleven retired generals and admirals to prepare a paper titled "National Security and the Threat of Climate Change". They concluded that Global climate change presents a serious national security threat which could impact Americans at home, impact United States military operations and heighten global tensions.

The Central Intelligence Agency has opened The Center on Climate Change and National Security to study the impact of climate change on US national security.

Conservative activist and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has called for a Conservative Environmentalism to find solutions to global warming by free market mechanisms.

Climate Change As A Cult

The zeal of climate-change advocates and lack of objectivity has led some observers to see it as a core belief in a new eco-theology, using themes of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs. columnist Deon Feder warns, that following other attempts such as Marxism, overpopulation, Silent Spring,

now we have the Church of Global Warming, under the leadership of Pope Albert I and his college of cardinals (the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and editorial board of The New York Times). Its Office for the Propagation of the Faith works overtime, churning out books, movies (from the fictional “The Day After Tomorrow” to the fictional “An Inconvenient Truth”), textbooks, concerts, congressional hearings, media pleading and inquisitions.

Commenting on the tendency to hastily issue dire warnings of Climate Change, seen in the coming Ice Age scare of the 70's, Maurizio Morabito asked, “Is the problem with the general public, who cannot talk about climate except in doom-laden terms, and for whom the sky is the last animist god?"

Mark Steyn writes in Macleans,

"Forty years ago conventional religious belief was certainly in decline in what we once knew as Christendom, but the hole was not yet ozone-layer sized. Once the sea of faith had receded far from shore, the post-Christian West looked at what remained and found “Gaia.”

And while, "When man was made in the image of God, he was fallen but redeemable", among these devotees of Gaia,

Anti-humanism is everywhere, not least in the barely concealed admiration for China’s (demographically disastrous) “One Child” policy advanced by everyone from the National Post’s Diane Francis to Sir David Attenborough, the world’s leading telly naturalist but also a BBC exec who once long ago commissioned the great series The Ascent of Man. If Sir David’s any guide, the great thing about man’s ascent is it gives him a higher cliff to nosedive off.

Climate "Science" Fraud

For a more detailed treatment, see Climategate.

The Climategate scandal revealed how liberal scientists appeared to be deceiving the public with the use of fraudulent data for use as climate science. The liberal media has attempted to bury the story and discount it as the work of computer hackers illegally stealing data, however, Freedom of Information requests is likely what led to the data being leaked — intentionally. Dr. Willie Soon, a physicist, astronomer and climate researcher at the solar and stellar physics division of the Harvard University-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in an interview, "[The Climatic Research Unit climate scientists] are making scientific progress more difficult now. This is a shameful, dark day for science." Dr. Soon also suggested that there has been systemic suppression of dissenting opinion among scientists in the climate change community, ranging from social snubs to e-mail stalking and even threats of harm.

Al Gore's Schlockumentary under fire; An Inconvenient Truth found to be an inconvenient lie based on junk science and digitally enhanced, totally faked scenes of polar icecaps melting.

Liberal claims of "Consensus"

Richard Lindzen wrote in 1992,

Indeed, a recent Gallup poll of climate scientists in the American Meteorological Society and in the American Geophysical Union shows that a vast majority doubts that there has been any identifiable man-caused warming to date (49 percent asserted no, 33 percent did not know, 18 percent thought some has occurred; however, among those actively involved in research and publishing frequently in peer-reviewed research journals, none believes that any man-caused global warming has been identified so far).

Oddly enough, even though 82% of US climate scientists refused to support the global warming theory then, liberal activists were already claiming a scientific consensus for anthropogenic global warming. (It's hard to understand how 18 percent credence in any global warming translates into "consensus" support for human-caused global warming.)

The campaign to convince the public (and their elected representatives) that the "science is settled" began in 1988 or 1989.

By the 2008 elections both candidates for the Presidency of the United States were proposing plans to mitigate climate change.

Over 31,000 American scientists have signed the petition rejecting global warming.

Global Warming Petition

It is well understood that most media companies do not offer balanced reporting. Many politicians have bought into the liberal claim of consensus, for example Barack Obama's views, "Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than fighting climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear." In fact, many scientists disagree with the "facts," their certainty, and their interpretation. Over 100 of them have signed the statement that appears in the Cato Institute's newspaper ad. Liberals have failed to back up their claims with any scientific facts.

Past Speculation

Speculation and warnings of catastrophic climate change are not unprecedented. In 2001 the Guardian noted that some 70s headlines shouted, "Brace yourself for another ice age". In 1971 the journal Science reported that the subsequent cooling effect resulting from a possible eightfold increased from atmospheric aerosol concentrations, "if sustained over a period of several years - is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age."

In June, 1974, Time magazine published its front page article, Science: Another Ice Age?, while a report by the CIA in the same year stated that, "The world's leading climatologists have confirmed recent reports of a detrimental global climatic change”, noting such things as that the "world's snow and ice cover had increased by at least 10 to 15 percent", and "the Canadian area of Arctic Greenland suffered below normal temperatures for 19 consecutive months", which was unique during the last 100 years. A "major climatic shift" was speculated, which would threaten the "the stability of most nations.” It further warned that "Scientists are confident that unless man is able to modify the climate, the northern regions, such as Canada" to "major areas in northern China will again be covered with 100 to 200 feet of ice and snow", within the next 2500 years - or sooner.

Also in 1974, Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist and atmospheric researcher wrote in his book The Weather Machine, "One might argue that there is a virtual certainty of the next ice age starting some time in the next 2000 years. Then the odds are only about 20-to-1 against it beginning in the next 100 years."

In 1975 the liberal magazine Newsweek reported that "Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend,...but they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century." These authorities were skeptical that political leaders would take any positive action to compensate for the climate change, and they conceded that the more dramatic solutions, such as melting the arctic ice cap, might create worse problems than that which they were designed to solve.

Natural Variability of the Climate System

It is virtually universally accepted amongst secular climatologists that the earth has experienced numerous ice ages over two million years, during which global temperatures fluctuated created glacial and inter-glacial periods. The frigid temperatures allowed ice sheets to expand southward, covering much of Asia, Europe, and North America. The cooling associated with ice ages is gradual, while the terminations are relatively rapid. However, even the rapid terminations of ice ages take centuries to millennia.

Natural Climate Change on Other Planets

Since the Viking spacecraft reached Mars in the 1970s until recent readings were taken, the average temperature on Mars has risen 0.6 °C [1.1 °F] just as the average temperature on the earth has risen. Since human industrialization is clearly not to blame for the change on Mars, other causes are being considered. One possibility is that dust storms are changing the albedo of the planet, allowing it to warm, while another possibility is that solar variations from the sun are causing the warming.

Recently, it has also been found that similar to the Earth and Mars, Neptune is also undergoing global warming. Measurements taken at the Lowell observatory in Arizona have shown an increase in Neptune's brightness and temperature since 1980 following the same pattern seen on Earth and Mars. The researchers who discovered this warming suggest there may be a correlation between the warming and solar variations.

Pluto has also been found to be undergoing global warming. The overall temperature increase on Pluto has been greater than that on the earth.

On the other hand Uranus has had no net change in temperature since 1977. A rapid increase in temperature reversed itself. The reasons for this are not understood.

Global temperatures change on other planets even when there is no life, something which strongly supports the idea that humans are not necessarily the cause of earth's global warming. Moreover, the temperature on Uranus has fluctuated back and forth. There is no reason that fluctuations cannot occur on earth, too.

Although measurements have been made of the temperatures of other planets these are by no means thorough or comparable with the measurements used for earth. The short space of time over which measurements have been taken and the very limited spatial coverage means that reliable average figures have not been obtained. They have certainly not been taken extensively enough to produce a five year average temperature, which is the standard when determining temperature trends on earth.

However, if accurate measurements could be made, and their accuracy and reliability is improving over time, then they may prove useful to climate science. Their different atmospheres and distances from the sun provide natural laboratories to study climatic changes without human influences. Though of course they will not be directly comparable due to the vast differences.

Beneficial effects of Global Warming

Canoing on a Colorful Day, (NY).

Some researchers point out that benefits of health global warming have been overlooked, or minimized. As far back as 1996, Thomas Gale Moore, Senior Fellow at Hoover Institution (Stanford University) contended that positive health and amenity effects would be a result of projected increases in temperature.

Another source notes,

In areas that see extreme cold temperatures, deaths related to colder weather would drop significantly, leading to decreased health care costs. Warmer temperatures would also mean less energy use to heat homes and buildings, helping to conserve energy. With the changes brought about by global warming more land would become available for uses like farming and living. Forests and plants would grow stronger, healthier, and more abundant because of the warmer weather, and this would mean more oxygen being released into the atmosphere.

Politics of Global Warming and Dissent

For a more detailed treatment, see Politics of global warming.

Christine Stewart- Canadian Environment Ministry, "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits . . . Climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”

'Global Warming Now World's Most Boring Topic’

The need to fight "global warming" has become part of the dogma of the liberal conscience.

Clearly, "global warming" is a tempting issue for many very important groups to exploit. ... dealing with the threat of warming fits in with a great variety of preexisting agendas [like] dissatisfaction with industrial society (neopastoralism), ... governmental desires for enhanced revenues (carbon taxes), and bureaucratic desires for enhanced power.

Mark Steyn writes in "Why climate change is hot hot hot",

What’s also changed since the seventies is the nature of the UN and the transnational bureaucracies...“Aid” is a discredited word these days and comes with too many strings attached. But eco-credits sluiced through an oil-for-food program on steroids offers splendid new opportunities for bulking up an ambitious dictator’s Swiss bank accounts.

The IPCC is desperate to claim the 20th century-- the warmest on record. Thus, tying the progress of modern mankind to our supposed planet imbalance problem. Unfortunately for the IPCC, that point is disputed as well. In 2008, it was discovered that tree rings in Finland were more accurate record of the warmest century. The current era was not the warmest period-- it was the period between 931 and 1180.

Assessments of climate science by the United Nations (see IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have claimed that scientists are 90% sure that over 50% of the observed global warming in recent decades is human-caused, and that continued global warming should be expected over at least the next century.

Several prominent scientists have pointed out the politicized science of the UN's assessment methods. The scientific reports are submitted to a panel of representatives appointed by each country in the IPCC. Several scientists whose research demonstrates that climate change is taking place have complained about their work being misrepresented by the U.N.

In addition, a number of the participants have testified to the pressures placed on them to emphasize results supportive of the current scenario and to suppress other results. That pressure has frequently been effective, and a survey of participants reveals substantial disagreement with the final report.

Richard Lindzen wrote:

Perhaps more important are the pressures being brought to bear on scientists to get the "right" results. Such pressures are inevitable, given how far out on a limb much of the scientific community has gone. The situation is compounded by the fact that some of the strongest proponents of "global warming" in Congress are also among the major supporters of science (Sen. Gore is notable among those).

Christopher Monckton wrote an article titled Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered.

States that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change studies are flawed. The present analysis suggests the models failure to predict other climatic phenomena arises from defects in its evaluation of radioactive forcing, no-feedbacks climate sensitivity parameter and feedback multiplier. In conclusion, that there may be no "Climate Crisis" and for governments to reduce emissions may be pointless or even harmful. This was published on a forum of the American Physical Society with the following disclaimer "The article has not undergone any scientific peer review" and "the APS disagrees with the articles conclusions" In fact, the APS disagrees with the article without ever reviewing it.

Ryan N. Maue:

A doctoral student at the Department of Meteorology at Florida State University did a study of global tropical cyclone activity. Its conclusions state that global warming might be greatly overblown. Mr. Maue found that tropical cyclone activity worldwide "has completely and utterly collapsed" during the past two to three years with energy levels sinking to those of the late 1970s.

Dr. Vincent Gray:

A member of the IPCC’s expert reviewers’ panel asserts, “There is no relationship between warming and the level of gases in the atmosphere,” and "there is no serious threat to the climate"

Joe D’Aleo: Climatologist

The International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project says new data "show that in five of the last seven decades since World War II, including this one, global temperatures have cooled while carbon dioxide has continued to rise," and "The data suggest cooling, not warming, in Earth's future."

Dr. John S. Theon:

Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former boss of global warming alarmist James Hansen of NASA, rebukes him declaring “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results."

Sammy Wilson -Ireland's environment minister

He argues that global weather patterns are naturally cooling, not warming. He calls television ads that promote global warming as "an insidious propaganda campaign" peddling "patent nonsense."

After the broadcast of his movie 'The Great Global Warming Swindle', filmmaker Martin Durkin's statements read

• “Everywhere you are told that man-made climate change is proved beyond doubt,” “But you are being told lies.”
• “This is a story of how a theory about climate turned into a political ideology ... it is the story of the distortion of a whole area of science.”
• “as the frenzy over man-made global warming grows shriller, many senior scientists say the actual scientific basis for the theory is crumbling.”

In late 2008, the AP published an article by its Science Writer Seth Borenstein, which is seen by skeptics as another example of one-sided, uncritical reporting on the issue by liberal media. The report stated that global warming was "a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid", and that "We're out of time", with Al Gore calling the situation "the equivalent of a five-alarm fire that has to be addressed immediately." In response, Fox News (December 16, 2008) reported that scientists skeptical of anthropogenic global warming criticized the report as "irrational hysteria," "horrifically bad" and "incredibly biased", containing sweeping scientific errors and being a one-sided portrayal of a complicated issue. Geology professor David Deming stated, "If the issues weren't so serious and the ramifications so profound, I would have to laugh at it", and accused Borenstein of "writing a polemic and reporting it as fact." Deming noted that "the mean global temperature, at least as measured by satellite, is now the same as it was in the year 1980. In the last couple of years sea level has stopped rising. Hurricane and cyclone activity in the northern hemisphere is at a 24-year low and sea ice globally is also the same as it was in 1980." The AP responded to criticism by stating that, "It’s a news story, based on fact and the clearly expressed views of President-elect Barack Obama and others."

Also in the discussion of the biased AP report, Michael R. Fox, a retired nuclear scientist and chemistry professor from the University of Idaho stated, "There is little evidence to believe that man-made carbon dioxide is causing temperature fluctuation. Other factors, including sun spots, solar winds, variations in the solar magnetic field and solar irradiation, could all be affecting temperature changes."

The year 2008 turned out to be the coolest year since 2000, yet the seventh to tenth warmest year on record, according to the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. According to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, the average June-August 2009 summer temperature for the contiguous United States was below average – the 34th coolest on record.

Richard S. Courtney, a U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expert reviewer and a U.K.-based climate and atmospheric science consultant says "Rubbish! Global warming is not 'accelerating," and "...that anybody who proclaims that 'Global warming is accelerating' is a liar, a fool, or both."

Don J. Easterbrook, Ph.D., emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, asked, "What does it take to ignore 10 years of global cooling....? The answer is really quite simple — just follow the money!"

Al Gore's Claims

The decision by the government to distribute Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, became the subject of a legal challenge by New Party member Stewart Dimmock. A school governor from Dover and father of two, Dimmock charged the Government with brainwashing children with propaganda by presenting Gore’s sci-fi film as science. In October 2007, Mr Justice Burton of London's High Court found that while the film was "broadly accurate", it contained nine significant errors,“in which statements were made that were not supported by the current mainstream scientific consensus”, some of which had arisen in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration”. He also found the Guidance Notes drafted by the Education Secretary’s advisers only worked to exacerbate the political propaganda in the film.

Taken from the official transcript, the nine errors the judge found were:

• 1. Sea level rise of up to 20 feet (7 metres) will be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland in the near future. This is distinctly alarmist, and part of Mr Gore's 'wake-up call'. It is common ground that if indeed Greenland melted, it would release this amount of water, but only after, and over, millennia, so that the Armageddon scenario he predicts, insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of 7 metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus.

• 2. Low lying inhabited Pacific atolls are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming. In scene 20, Mr Gore states "that's why the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand". There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened.

• 3. Shutting down of the "Ocean Conveyor". According to the IPCC, it is very unlikely that the Ocean Conveyor (known technically as the Meridional Overturning Circulation or thermohaline circulation) will shut down in the future, though it is considered likely that thermohaline circulation may slow down.

• 4. Direct coincidence between rise in CO2 in the atmosphere and in temperature, by reference to two graphs. In scenes 8 and 9, Mr Gore shows two graphs relating to a period of 650,000 years, one showing rise in CO2 and one showing rise in temperature, and asserts (by ridiculing the opposite view) that they show an exact fit. Although there is general scientific agreement that there is a connection, the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts.

• 5. The snows of Kilimanjaro. The film asserted that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidenced global warming. The Government's expert was had to admit that this is not correct. Mr Gore asserts in scene 7 that the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro is expressly attributable to global warming. It is noteworthy that this is a point that specifically impressed Mr Milliband (see the press release quoted at paragraph 6 above). However, it is common ground that, the scientific consensus is that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mt Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.

• 6. Lake Chad etc. The drying up of Lake Chad is used as a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming. However, it is generally accepted that the evidence remains insufficient to establish such an attribution. It is apparently considered to be far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and over-grazing, and regional climate variability.

• 7. Hurricane Katrina. In scene 12 Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans is ascribed to global warming. It is common ground that there is insufficient evidence to show that.

• 8. Death of polar bears. In scene 16, by reference to a dramatic graphic of a polar bear desperately swimming through the water looking for ice, Mr Gore says: "A new scientific study shows that for the first time they are finding polar bears that have actually drowned swimming long distances up to 60 miles to find the ice. They did not find that before." The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.

• 9. Coral reefs. In scene 19, Mr Gore says: "Coral reefs all over the world because of global warming and other factors are bleaching and they end up like this. All the fish species that depend on the coral reef are also in jeopardy as a result. Overall specie loss is now occurring at a rate 1000 times greater than the natural background rate." The actual scientific view, as recorded in the IPCC report, is that, if the temperature were to rise by 1-3 degrees Centigrade, there would be increased coral bleaching and widespread coral mortality, unless corals could adopt or acclimatise, but that separating the impacts of climate change-related stresses from other stresses, such as over-fishing and polluting, is difficult.

Dimmock's lawyer, Mr. Downes, argued that by schools making available such film to its teachers, and if teachers then showed such film to their pupils, then this would inevitably result "in the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school, which is thus not only not being forbidden by the local education authority (and the DES), but being positively facilitated by them."

Mr Justice Barton stressed that the “apocalyptic vision” presented in the film was politically partisan and not an impartial analysis of the science of climate change. “It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film – although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion – but that it is a political film.

Justice Barton also stated that, “I conclude that the claimant substantially won this case by virtue of my finding that, but for the new guidance note, the film would have been distributed in breach of sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act.”

In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that

• 1. The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument.

• 2. If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination.

• 3. Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

Science and Public Policy took issue with the response to the ruling by Al Gore’s spokesman and environment adviser, and asserted that his film contains 35 Inconvenient Truths.

Related to above, while Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame, the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported,

Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame."

Regarding his claims that the snow cap atop Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that global warming is to blame, the November 23, 2003, issue of Nature magazine stated,

Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit. Without the forests' humidity, previously moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine."

Many conservatives see Al Gore as an example of liberals using deceitful tactics in important debates, i order to make a position seem more solid than it is.

Reported effects of Climate Change

Besides Global Warming, reported past or expected/possible future environmental and societal consequences of Climate Change include,

• Global cooling.

• Decreased food production.

• Increased food production.

• Killer cornflakes.

• Shrinking forests.

• Increased tree foliage.

• Increased productivity of high-elevation forests.'

• Melting glaciers.

• Growing glaciers.

• Increasing landmass in Antarctica.

• Colder winters

• A new ice age.

• Prevention of an ice age.

• Taller mountains.

• A lop-sided planet.

• Stronger hurricanes.

• Weaker Hurricanes.

• Shorter days.

• Earthquakes and volcanoes, and other geological disasters. Attempts to prevent climate change may do the same.

• Earth exploding

• Shrinking brains.

• Shrinking sheep.

• Tiger Attacks.

• Shark attacks.

• Walrus stampede deaths.

• Imminent cannibalism.

• The death of the the Loch Ness Monster.

• Black Hawk Down, when 18 members of a U.S. military team were killed in a helicopter crash in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993.

• The need for a drastic reduction of the earth’s population.

• A strong increase in people dying of AIDS

• Increased risk of civil war in Africa.

• Child climate cops.

• Increase in depression.

• Increase in psychiatric illness.

• Increased anxiety and loss of sleep among many children.

2008 Presidential candidates on climate Change

Bob Barr is the only major 2008 Presidential Candidate who has not adopted wholesale the theory of human-caused global warming.

According to his website, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain will take a more "aggressive approach" to global warming which he has declared as "undeniable and urgent." He was supported in this in June 2008 by Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who said McCain was the "real deal on the environment"..

In his own words, McCain says "the overwhelming majority of scientific opinion in America today, and in the world, is that climate change is real. The fact is that it is real. The fact is that the solution to it is the development of technologies.... and a cap and trade proposal.... the debate is over."[15] Unless McCain believes that Global Warming is entirely or largely man-made, there would be no sense in supporting a cap and trade solution.

Barack Obama believes "that global warming is not just the greatest environmental challenge facing our planet—it is one of our greatest challenges of any kind." During his first 100 days in office, he would enact a giant and far-reaching tax "an economy-wide cap on U.S. carbon emissions that will reduce U.S. emissions by the amount scientists agree is necessary (80% by 2050). With worldwide cuts in emissions estimated to cost $45 Trillion dollars overall. He comments "Putting a price on carbon is the most important step we can to take to reduce emissions."

Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" Movie Claims

A British court has determined that Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" contains at least eleven material falsehoods

Those inaccuracies include the following

• The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
• The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found the film misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
• The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
• The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
• The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
• The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
• The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
• The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
• The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
• The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. The evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
• The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

Scientists

Roger Revelle

Roger Revelle Achim Steiner Fred Singer Richard Lindzen Sallie Baliunas Lonnie Thompson

James E. Hansen Michael Mann Charles Keeling Edwin A. Hernández-Delgado

Critique of the Hockey Stick Reconstruction

See also : Climategate: hockey stick graph

• Corrections To The Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base And Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, Energy & Enviornment volume 14, 2003.
• The Decay of the Hockey Stick by Von Storch published on the journal Nature's blog, May 3, 2007.
• A Global Warming Bombshell by Richard A. Muller, Technology Review , Oct. 2004; calls into question famous graph by Michael Mann.
• Reconstructing Past Climate from Noisy Data by Hans von Storch, Eduardo Zorita, Julie M. Jones, Yegor Dimitriev, Fidel González-Rouco, Simon F. B. Tett, Science magazine, 22 October 2004.
• The ‘hockey stick’ and the 1990s: a statistical perspective on reconstructing hemispheric temperatures by Bo Li, Douglas W. Nychka and Casper M. Ammann, Institute for Mathmatics Applied to Geosciences; (Manuscript received 22 March 2007; in final form 28 June 2007).
• Ice Core Data Show No Carbon Dioxide Increase by Zbigniew Jaworowski, Ph.D., Spring 1997; this article examines one of the main pillars of the global warming thesis.
• The M&M Critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate Index: Update and Implications (Energy & Environment, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 69-100, January 2005) - Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick
• Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance (Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 32, February 2005) - Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick

Also See

• Massachusetts v. EPA
• Global Warming Derangement Syndrome
• Socialist Environmental Disasters

External Links

• What Liberals Say - Category: Global Warming, Accuracy In Media
• Attempting to Stop Global Warming is Futile and a Mistake, says letter to the UN
• Signatories of an open letter on the UN climate-conference
• Does a global temperature exist?, Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics, June 2007.
• The appliance of science by Mike Hulme.
• An Inconvenient Truth, Film by Al Gore
• The Great Global Warming Swindle - Documentary Film
• Climate Sensitivity and Observed Negative Feedbacks, lecture by Richard Lindzen and Roberto Rondanelli.
• Nature of Arguments for Anthropogenic Global Warming, by Richard Lindzen
• Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warmings's Unfinished Debate, by S. Fred Singer
• Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus - Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• "Should We Have Acted Thirty Years Ago to Prevent Climate Change?", by Randall G. Holcombe.
• "After Kyoto: A Global Scramble for Advantage," by Bruce Yandle.
• The physical evidence of earth's unstoppable 1,500-year climate cycle
• "Is There a Basis for Global Warming Alarm?", by Richard Lindzen
• "New Perspectives in Climate Change: What the EPA Isn’t Telling Us"
• Survey Shows Climatologists Are Split on Global Warming
• Fighting the Hoax
• Refuting the Myth of Man-made Global Warming
• Climate Audit, Steve McIntyre's blog
• Real Climate, blog by a group of climatologists including Michael Mann
• "CO2 Fairytales in Global Warming"
• A complete list of things caused by global warming
• Hackers Prove Global Warming Is A Scam