Global warming
Global warming is the increase of temperature since 1880. This increase in temperture is mainly caused by the increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The possibility of adverse consequences has become a major concern for some environmentalists.
According to geologists, the Earth has experience numerous ice ages during which the temperature dropped so far that glaciers could cover North America and Europe. There is a close correlation between the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. During warm periods, the carbon dioxide level increases, and during cool periods it decreases. Today the carbon dioxid concentration is 380 ppm. The pre-industrial level was 280 ppm.
Politics of global warming
Upon the dissolution of the USSR, and when the Berlin Wall was torn down, leftists sought a new cause. They joined with environmentalists to publicize various climate change issues such as ozone depletion and the runaway greenhouse effect.
Assessments of climate science by the United Nations (see IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have claimed that there is a scientific consensus on the subject. According to their latest report, scientists are 90% sure that over 50% of the observed global warming in recent decades is human-caused, and that continued global warming could be expected to raise sea levels by one foot over 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. The panel picks and chooses what they want to put in the Summary for Policymakers, over the objections of scientists whose actual evaluations are disregarded when the do not fit the preordained conclusions of the panel.
Notes
Scientists
External links
- Fighting the Hoax
- An Inconvenient Truth - Propaganda film by Al Gore
- 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