There isn’t a sentient soul in America who hasn’t heard about "global warming." That term has been waved in our faces, shoved into our mailboxes, and pounded into our consciousnesses for about a decade now.
It’s nonsense, friends. Utter nonsense.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t stoop to dealing with a time-waster like this particular notion, but the global warming myth has become really dangerous. Therefore it has become critical that we know and understand it so we can (a) discern the motivations behind those who promote it, and (b) know what to do about it.
In pursuit of these two goals, this blog will dissect global warming in three consecutive postings:
What it is, and why it’s ludicrous
The motivations behind those who promote it
What you should do about it.
Part One: What is Global Warming, and Why Is It Nonsense?
Global warming is junk science. According to scientist and engineer William Hunt (1-22-07, "Newswithviews.com"), junk science is "the publishing and/or expounding of purportedly scientific views which are contradicted by actual science."
Global warming is the belief that mankind has caused the average annual atmospheric temperatures to increase. How? By burning carbon-based fuels like oil, natural gas, coal, and wood. The theory is that such burning creates a layer of carbon dioxide that traps radiated heat from the earth’s surface instead of allowing it to escape into space, thus warming the earth and seas.
Now think about that for a moment. The earth is approximately 25,000 miles in circumference. It’s covered entirely by the troposphere, extending to seven miles above the earth’s surface, and it’s in this atmospheric layer that all weather happens. The troposphere is composed of 175,000 cubic miles of gases, of which 70% is nitrogen and 21% is oxygen. When carbon-based smoke enters the troposphere, it is carried on the winds and subjected to the filtering process that occurs when the oceans, which constitute 70% of the earth’s surface, contribute water vapor from evaporation and mix that with the carbon-based gases. This mixture falls upon the earth in the form of precipitation, mainly rain. The excess water from rain and melted snow upon land masses flows through creeks and rivers to the ocean, where the carbon is used by organic life forms to sustain and grow new life. So carbon dioxide is essential for the building of life in the seas! Before the industrial age, carbon dioxide was released into the troposphere by lightning-sparked forest and grass fires.
One fact that global warming hysterics either don’t know or won’t tell you is that natural processes completely eclipse anything mankind does to affect the atmosphere. A minor rainstorm over central Minnesota expends more energy than a hydrogen bomb. An F1 hurricane, the lowest category of this type of storm, expends more energy and creates more carbon dioxide than all of the nuclear weapons ever produced could do. The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines by itself put more carbon dioxide, other gases, and mineral ash into the troposphere than has otherwise occurred in the entire history of man on planet earth!
Why do many biologists and botanists accept the theory of global warming as fact while the vast majority of geologists laugh at it? Because geologists take the large view; i.e. as observers of the earth as a geologic system, they have a keen appreciation for the kind of power inherent in natural systems.
For example, geologists point to strata which prove a 500-year (+/- 50 years) period of considerable global warming prior to the year 1350. Note that "global warming" in this context is a rise in the average temperature of the earth without reference to any manmade causes. In this pre-1350 warm period, much of Scandinavia featured productive farming. Canada was fruitful well up into the northern regions of that (soon-to-be) country. Greenland was even good farming territory! Al Gore, please note: there were no factories, SUV’s, Hummers, or jet planes back then.
Then, from 1350 to 1850 (the "Little Ice Age"), the earth experienced a considerable drop in average temperature. The areas mentioned above became impossible to farm, except for southern Scandinavia and southern Canada, and then only for a limited time each year.
Geologists and historians also point to two other more-or-less 500-year periods when the earth was quite warm, relatively speaking: from the 14th to the 11th century B.C. and from 100 B.C. to 400 A.D.
Thus it appears from the evidence that the earth regularly experiences half-millennial phases, from warm to cool and back to warm. More than likely this is due almost exclusively to our sun’s phases, which is proven by comparing Sol’s activity to the earth’s macro-fluctuations in average temperature. The correlation is striking.
Here are some other facts which belie the notion of man-made global warming:
1. NASA scientist Jay Zwally used satellite data to measure changes in polar ice caps from 1992 to 2002. He found that Greenland gained 11 billions tons of ice per year while Antarctica lost 31 billions tons per year during this period. The resulting change in worldwide sea level was + 0.5 millimeters, or about half the thickness of a sheet of typing paper. At that rate, it would require a thousand years for a two-inch rise in ocean levels, an insignificant amount. In the last six years, the data appears to be reversing: more ice is forming than is lost.
2. Al Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth" depicts ghastly scenes of polar bears drowning from melting glaciers. The real truth is quite the opposite: eleven of thirteen provinces in Canada show an increase in polar bear population over the past fifty years.
3. Global warming proponents pin wildly increased hurricane activity in 2005 (five major storms over Florida) on global warming. But not one single hurricane hit the USA in 2006. What, did everyone park their SUV’s and shut off their factories?
4. Since early in the 20th century, despite global warming hysterics’ claims to the contrary, North Dakota is the only U.S. state to experience a record high temperature for the year.
5. When satellites began to circle the earth and measure the earth’s temperature, many nations eliminated rural weather stations in order to save costs. The receptors that remain are mostly in or near large cities. Such areas have a "heat island" effect from the absorption of heat by concrete and asphalt, resulting in readings up to three degrees higher than rural areas. Thus, much of the "data" which global warmists use is faulty.
6. In the 1950’s, the Scripps Institute placed a carbon dioxide monitor on the Big Island of Hawaii, far from industrialization. The idea was to collect data and use it as a standard to measure worldwide carbon dioxide levels. The theory, like many, was grand; the practice was woeful. On this island, which is home to many active volcanoes, the monitor picks up significant amounts of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, steam, and other gases. The volcanoes are so significant a local atmospheric factor that they produce air pollution on Oahu, two hundred miles away. Yet the global warmists cite the Hawaiian data as proof positive for their theory.
Similarly, Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality placed a carbon monoxide sensor half a city block from an old factory whose inefficient boilers were producing large amounts of the gas. The DEQ concluded from the readings that the entire Rogue Valley area was suffering from increased carbon monoxide. Global warmists cite that data also. When the factory closed, the readings fell by half. You don’t hear about the new readings from Al Gore.
7. Global warming proponents cite core ice samples from Greenland and other "permanent" (for this 500-year period, anyway) glaciers that they say prove increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, since there is more of the gas in top layers than in the central body of the ice. What they don’t know or don’t say is that glaciers "flow" starting about 150 feet down into the ice. Since carbon dioxide is inert, it is squeezed up into the upper layers of the glacier over time as the glacier moves. Thus, higher readings appear near the top layers.
All of this is evidence of time-wasting navel gazing on the part of global warming proponents. They take isolated data and use it to proclaim broad statements without putting it into context. In this respect, they are like Darwinists, who use the evidence of finches changing beak sizes in relation to wetter or dryer climate conditions as "proof" that mankind evolved from an amniotic swamp. They don’t tell you that the finches never become eagles or that their beaks revert to type when the climate changes back again.
There are only two means to accurately predict climatological conditions for the future. One is to have accurate sensors sensibly placed over thousands of areas for hundreds of years to collect a large body of data. The other is to design a computer model that will make an accurate prediction. Global warmists haven’t tried the first method, most likely because they’re impatient and the scientific method might produce facts that would interfere with their opinion. As for the second, this is almost impossible: there are literally millions of variables that must be considered, and no computer program ever envisioned comes even close to handling such a mammoth project.
Next week: Part Two—the Motivations Behind Those Who Promote
Global Warming
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