THE NON-CRISIS OF GLOBAL WARMING

THE NON-CRISIS OF
GLOBAL WARMING
INTRODUCTION
“Global Warming” is a phrase so often heard that it has become
a haunting mantra; often heard, but little understood by most
people except as a vague rumor of destruction and fear. This
presentation will attempt to provide a concise, accessible tool
for the understanding of a complex and divisive issue that has
been touted by some to be a threat on the scale of nuclear war.
Follow along on a journey through the swirling, inconstant gases
of our planet’s atmosphere, and the equally chaotic vapors of
the academic and political processes that attempt to describe and
govern it.
THE BIG ROUND GREENHOUSE
Life on Earth, as we all know, is made possible by energy from the Sun. Of equal importance
is the thin atmosphere that blankets the planet and selectively filters the solar radiation. The
“greenhouse effect” is one of these filters. Certain gases freely allow ultraviolet radiation
to pass, heating the atmosphere and the surface of the earth . Heat is radiated back into
space as infrared, but some is trapped by these so-called “greenhouse gases.” The most
important of these gases are water vapor (H2O), responsible for about 95% of the effect; and
carbon dioxide (CO2), a minor but significant component and the subject of our discussion.
H2 O
H2 O
H2 O
CO2
ULTRAVIOLET
H2 O
H2 O
H2 O
H2 O
H2 O
H2 O
H2 O
CO2
H2 O
H2 O
H2 O
H2 O
H2 O
INFRARED
H2 O
CO2
H2 O
The “greenhouse effect” makes life possible and is nothing to be alarmed about. Likewise,
carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but is essential to the biosphere. Without it there could be
no plants, and without plants, no complex life whatsoever. Since the late 1800’s, the
concentration of CO2 has been increasing, in part due to the combustion of fossil fuels by
man. This “anthropogenic”, or man-caused CO2 increase has been accompanied by a
modest increase in average global near-surface temperatures, about 0.7° C (1.3° F) during
the 20th century.
As we shall see, the combination of slightly warmer temperatures with a significant boost in
atmospheric CO2 will likely produce a greener, more productive, more bio-diverse planet
that experiences a milder general climate with fewer, and less extreme, severe weather events.
You have perhaps been told quite the opposite, but if you will continue to turn the pages it
will become evident that doom and gloom predictions are not supported by the evidence.
HISTORY OF CLIMATE EVENTS
The Twentieth Century:
*
Prior to about 1940, the slow buildup of CO2 was insufficient to have had any significant
greenhouse effect, yet it is this period that displays the greatest and most rapid temperature
increase. As CO2 increased from the 1940’s to the mid 1970’s, a dramatic cooling trend
dominated. Temperatures began to rise again until we are now very near the century average.
AND BACK FURTHER STILL
From about 1500-1850 A.D. a climatic period known as the Little Ice Age was evident across
the globe. Average temperatures reached about 1.5° C (2.7° F) cooler than the 20th century.
The Medieval Warm Period, from about 900-1200 A.D., was marked by temperatures around
2.0° C (3.6° F) warmer than the 20th century average. Wine production could be sustained in
England, and the Vikings named what is now a largely glaciated island “Greenland.”
Clearly, wide temperature variations are common, natural, and quite well tolerated by the life
on this Earth.
†
Houghton/IPCC 1990
3000 YEAR CLIMATE HISTORY
¶
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
Also known as GCMs, these models are complex computer programs that try to simulate
climate processes. GCMs form the basis of the “evidence” presented to justify the crisis
scenarios so often depicted by politicians, the media, and some scientists. Numerous such
models exist, produced by various research groups, and all produce varying results, some
dramatically so. For the most part they share several things in common:
GIGO
MADAGASCAR
-They are limited by the amount and quality of the information used in the model.
Atmospheric circulation is so complex, affected by so many factors that it is
impossible to take them all into account. Averages and assumptions are used.
-They operate on large spatial scales, so their resolution is very low, like having
3 pixels where 300 would be necessary for a clear picture. Thus, while GCMs are
of extremely limited value even for large scale observations, they are useless as
indicators of small scale events and trends, such as regional or local projections.
-They cannot replicate, or “hindcast”, the actual events of the 20th century. Most
indicate that precipitation should have decreased during that period, but in reality
a steady increase was recorded. Cooling occurred when the models said it should
have been getting warmer. Since they replicate the known events of the past so
poorly, climate models should be considered skeptically as guides to the future.
PEABODY & SHERMAN
Climate modeling is very inexact, a science in its infancy. It should not influence policy.
GCMs AND OFFICIAL POLICY
Two models utilized in policy decisions are from the Canadian Climate Centre (CGCM1), and
the Hadley Centre Model (HadCM2). These two models are used below to complete the
200 year “history” from 1890 to 2100. Model results begin in 2000.
*
Both models predict a sudden, extreme, and constant rise in temperature unprecedented in
any existing observed climate history. Many other more conservative models exist.
Yet these two high-end ones were chosen for the United States National Assessment of the
Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, published in 2000.
THE U.S. NATIONAL ASSESSMENT
*
These are the climate models considered by the USNA team. Those chosen for inclusion are
the ones producing the most extreme results, those least representative of observed conditions.
For example, CGCM1 results in a linear increase of 1.5° C. during the 20th century, while the
actual recorded data from the National Climatic Data Center reveals a 0.5° C rise, a 300% error.
USNA FACT SHEET
“[The National Assessment] is an evangelistic statement about a
coming apocalypse [and] not a scientific statement about the
evolution of a complicated system with significant uncertainty.”
-Dr. John Christy, University of Alabama in Huntsville
-The USNA was established by
John Gibbons, the Science and
*
Technology Assistant to Bill
Clinton.
-Used outdated assumptions such
as the unrealistic doomsayings
of Paul Erlich and grossly overestimated CO2 growth rates.
-Used extreme data from climate
models available.
-Professor Patrick J. Michaels
demonstrated that the models
used by the USNA were no more
accurate than a set of random numbers applied to observed average temperatures for the 20th
century, a fact that the USNA team acknowledged. They did not alter their findings, however.
INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL
ON CLIMATE CHANGE
The IPCC is the 2500 member United Nations body concerned with CO2 and man’s impact on
climate. Only about 70 or so are qualified climate scientists who author scientific papers,
and those papers are not peer reviewed in the appropriate way. It is important to realize that
the IPCC is a political body, not a scientific one.
* -Early prophesies by the IPCC were dire and
extreme: large temperature increases, melting
ice, droughts and floods, severe storms, drastic
sea level rise, and species going extinct at
dizzying rates.
-Scientists produced frightening results from a
wide array of data that we will see is highly
suspect.
-The news media hyped the disaster scenarios
without regard to actual evidence to the contrary.
-Politicians and other opportunistic individuals in
industry and international finance seized the
opportunity to capitalize on the ensuing fear.
THE IPCC’S THIRD ASSESSMENT
By 2001 the IPCC had pushed fantasy as far as it would go and began to acknowledge the
pervasive and undeniable evidence that the world was simply not going to come to an end
just to suit the UN bureaucrats. The following frank admissions are illustrative of the new,
more sober IPCC.
“Changes globally in tropical and extra-tropical storm intensity and frequency are dominated
by inter-decadal and multi-decadal variations, with no significant trends evident over the
20th century.” –UNIPCC Third Assessment Report, p.5.
“Clearly there is little agreement between models on the changes in storminess that might
occur in a warmer world. Conclusions regarding extreme storm events are obviously more
uncertain.” –UNIPCC Second Assessment, 1996.
“Projections of components contributing to sea level change from 1990 to 2100…using a
range of [climate models]…give a Greenland contribution of -0.02 to 0.09 meters.”
-UNIPCC Third Assessment Report, 2001
Despite these overt confessions the steamroller of fear-mongering and policy manipulation
continues. $20 billion later and all that the IPCC can say is essentially this: No Big Deal!
THE BOY WHO CRIED WARMING
Perhaps the most important single factor in stirring the stew of global warming fear was the
June 23, 1988 testimony before Congress by James Hansen of NASA. He assured those
legislators that he was “99 percent sure” that anthropogenic causes were responsible for the
climate extremes being experienced at the time. Hansen’s words started the flow of lucre
that became a $20 billion flood.
Dr. Hansen changed his tune by 1999. Here are some examples:
-”The forces that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient
to define future climate change.” –1999
-”Future global warming can be predicted much more accurately than is generally realized…
we predict additional warming in the next 50 years of ¾°C ± ¼°C, a warming rate of
0.15°C ± 0.05°C per decade.” –Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2001
-”Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public
and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue. Now, however,
the need is for demonstrably objective climate..scenarios consistent with what is realistic
under current conditions.” –Natural Science
INSTITUTIONALIZED
EXAGGERATION
The nearly universal tendency for hyperbole among global warming alarmists is perhaps best
summed up by Stephen Schneider of Stanford University in comments made in 1988:
“We are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to
tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but…On the other hand, we
are not just scientists, but human beings as well. And like most people
we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates
into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate
change. To do that we have to get some broad-based public support,
to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads
of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make
simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts
we might have. This “double ethical blind” that we frequently find
ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide
what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
(emphasis added)
This kind of attitude may explain why the truth is such an elusive quality in modern
climate science reporting. The next few slides are prominent examples of how this
“double ethical blind” has indeed blinded some scientists to their ethical duty to truth.
I’M MELTING!?!
*
*
In August of 2000 the
New York Times reported
that an unprecedented
melting of the North Pole
had occurred due to global
warming.
They were forced to print
a retraction admitting that
open water in summer at
high latitudes was not
uncommon.
As shown above, Arctic temperatures reveal a slight increase during the winter, but no trend for
the same period in summer temperatures. The Antarctic shows similar results. Yet the next set
of diagrams reveals completely different patterns of change in sea-ice extent. Ablation and
accretion of polar ice seems independent of temperature.
The 2-3° C upward trend in winter temperatures has little effect on ice melt when -40° is
common. The ice doesn’t melt in the winter. There is no significant temperature trend in
summer at either pole when ice does melt.
GLACIERS
The retreat of prominent glaciers such as those on Mt. Kilimanjaro and at Glacier National Park
has been presented as evidence of climate change a la humanity. Yet, the last quarter million
years have seen the dramatic advance and retreat of vast sheets of ice in the northern
hemisphere, and the smaller scale behavior of local alpine glaciation has likewise oscillated
with little regard to man’s meager input.
-Kilimanjaro’s ice has been dwindling throughout the last century whether global temperatures
were rising or falling. The greatest rate of retreat was from 1912 to 1953, before humanrelated alteration of the atmosphere was a factor. Since 1979 the region around the famous
glacier has experienced a cooling trend of about 0.22° C, yet the ice still recedes.
-Since reliable temperature records began in the 1880’s for the Glacier National Park area
there has been decadal-scale variation with no trend indicating general warming.
Current temperatures are very near the average for the record.
Alpine glaciers formed
during the Little Ice Age
reached maximum extent
by the 1800’s and began
rapidly to recede well
before the CO2 content
of the atmosphere was
significantly enhanced
by man.
*
*
ANTARCTIC SEA-ICE and PENGUIN
POPULATIONS
-J.P. Croxall, scientist for the British Antarctic
Survey, published a review in Science, 2002
claiming that sea-ice retreat due to rising
sea surface temperatures was responsible for
a decline in penguin populations.
-Refuted by penguin authority D.G. Ainley in April 18, 2002 Science.
Only the Adélie penguin populations along the north-western Antarctic
Peninsula are in decline, possibly due to disturbance by scientists
(the Adélie is the most studied of the three Antarctic species) and to the increase
of “eco-tourism.”
-Croxall used whaling ship logs as proxy data to determine sea-ice extent in the past, but
these data are flawed. Whalers were forced southward due to increasing scarcity of openwater whale populations, not because melting sea ice allowed them to.
-Deep ocean cores reveal that the winter margins of Antarctic sea-ice have not changed in
thousands of years.
BUTTERFLIES and BIODIVERSITY
-Camille Parmesan, entomologist, University of California-Santa Barbara, paper in Nature,
1996. Studied the apparent extirpation of Edith’s Checkerspot butterfly from northern Mexico
and its alleged shift north to British Columbia as a result of warming in those regions.
-There has been no warming in British Columbia for 75 years, and no variation in northern
Mexico outside of historical norms. In drier and hotter Nevada, the Checkerspot thrives.
-Professor Patrick J. Michaels pointed out the flaws in Parmesan’s interpretation, which she
acknowledged, but her work was still offered as proof of a global warming attack on
biodiversity. In a later study in Europe, Parmesan, et.al., again tried to argue the northward
forcing of non-migratory butterflies. Many species were observed well north of their historic
ranges while maintaining their accustomed southern territories. If these data prove anything,
they indicate increased ranges and greater biodiversity, not less.
*
FOOTNOTES in FALSEHOOD AND
FANTASY
-Benjamin Santer in Nature, 1996, used weather balloon data from 1962 to 1988 to prove that
temperature trends in the troposphere were consistent with model predictions.
-The balloon temperature history was complete from 1957 to 1995, but Santer, et.al. chose not
to include the data near both endpoints. When these data are included the entire claim fails.
-Evidence of dishonesty in the form of selective use of data and a lack of effective peer review.
-Nature was forced to print a correction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In Nature, 2004, Chris Thomas used statistical modeling to predict that a 0.8° C rise in
global temperature in the next century would result in the extinction of 20% of the earth’s
species.
-The previous century exhibited a temperature increase of almost that much, but there is no
evidence of such a massive extinction as a result, thus no reason to expect such in the future.
-There have been large fluctuations in temperature in the past, some of them with quite rapid
onset. If life on earth was as sensitive as Thomas, et.al. claim, little life would remain.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In August of 2002 Greenpeace issued the following statement:
“If we are going to stop the earth’s climate spinning out of control, most of the world’s reserves
of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas cannot be used for energy and must stay underground.
We must make the switch to positive energy at home and globally.” As this “green” group was
promoting this agenda, they were cruising in a massive luxury diesel yacht to Earth Summit II.
MALARIA and CLIMATE
Many alarmists have linked recent increases in malaria with climate change. Simon Hay of
Oxford University studied the relationship between these factors at several sites where the
disease was prevalent and found no correlation between infection and climate change.
The diagrams below show the temperature and precipitation trends for one of these sites,
Kericho, Kenya. Actually, no trend is present for either of these climate factors in the period
of greatest CO2 emissions. Hay obtained similar results for several other sites throughout
east Africa. Factors other than climate appear to be responsible for the spread of the disease
in the region.
*
WEST NILE VIRUS IN AMERICA
-Paul Epstein, Harvard School of Medicine, 2000 editorial in the Washington Post, claimed
that increased temperatures and climate variability would lead to a West Nile Virus epidemic
in the U.S..
-Citing the displacement of the yellow fever-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito by another species
from Asia, Paul Reiter of the CDC and author of the seminal 2001 review on mosquitoes and
climate change in Environmental Health Perspectives insists that:
“This displacement of one species by another illustrates a major flaw in the
popular debate on climate change. Biotic responses to climate change cannot
be predicted on the mere basis of climate envelopes. The distribution of species
is determined by its interaction with other species and by many other behavioral
and ecological factors. It is therefore naïve to suggest that species will move
to higher latitudes and altitudes simply on the basis of temperature change.”
-The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) does not consider West Nile virus to be a serious
health threat in the United States.
As with malaria and other mosquito-borne pathogens, factors not related to climate play a
significant role in transmission of disease. These include:
-Increased concentration of populations in urban centers and enhanced availability of easy
transportation.
-Social, economic, and political pressures that force migration and/or limit sanitation and access
to medical care. Resistance of pathogens to medical treatment.
-Resistance to insecticides, or the lack of them, for example the ban on DDT.
-Availability of simple, preventive adaptations such as window screens and air conditioning.
STATE OF THE WORLD
Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute and author of the non-science annual State of the
World was quoted in 2002 from an edition of that publication: “one gets a feeling that the
temperature is rising and that the rise is gaining momentum.” Patrick J. Michaels offers
the following data in place of “feelings.” The first shows the linear trends of three global
temperature histories. The second indicates trends from 1977 to each year in the series.
Neither describes an increase in rate of temperature rise.
*
SOURCE: Michaels, Meltdown, 2004
THE ALARMIST’S ATLANTIS
Lester Brown also proclaimed the plight of the central Pacific island, Tuvalu. According
to Mr. Brown, Tuvalu was in danger of being covered by the rising ocean as a result of
glacial melt from global warming. The government of Tuvalu is seeking refugee status
for its citizens from New Zealand and Australia.
-Tuvalu is in the center of a region of the ocean that has been falling in level
for the last 50 years, based in part on satellite sea surface topography mapping.
-Tuvalu’s real disaster is a stagnant economy on a group of islands devoid
of adequate resources.
*
IT’S SO HOT!
Based on ridiculous projections such as the Canadian Climate Centre model, the various
political entities (IPCC, USNA, etc.) have forecast dire expectations about future heat-related
mortality, but as Robert Davis of UVa demonstrated, heat-related deaths have actually declined
in the past few decades due to adaptation and awareness. W.R. Keatinge of Queen Mary and
Westfield College reported that cold-related deaths were far more significant than those caused
by heat. The data of Davis, et.al. agrees. Since greenhouse warming is most pronounced
during the winter and at higher latitudes, such warming will likely reduce net climate-related
mortality.
*
KYOTO
In 1997 the United Nations sponsored a conference on global warming in Kyoto, Japan. It
resulted in a “consensus” demand for drastic reductions of greenhouse emissions by the
industrialized nations. This “Kyoto Protocol” is based entirely upon the sort of spurious
“science” we have thus far profiled.
-If implemented, the Protocol would cost the United States $283 billion a year.
-Mario Lewis of the Cato Institute insists that the Kyoto guidelines “would have
almost no effect on global temperatures.” In fact, the IPCC itself admits that a
fully implemented Kyoto Protocol would decrease the temperature by only
0.07 °C over the next 50 years, an amount that is hardly even measurable!
-In 1998, a petition signed by more than 17,000 scientists was sent to Congress
urging those legislators to reject the baseless and damaging requirements contained
in the Kyoto Protocol.
-The petition was endorsed in a letter from Dr. Frederick Seitz, former president
of the National Academy of Sciences. The petition also included an article by
Dr. Arthur B. Robinson that presented the relevant current research on the issue.
-The thousands of climatologists, atmospheric scientists, meteorologists, physical
chemists, and others expressed emphatically:
“There is no convincing evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane,
or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause
catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s
climate.”
KILLER STORMS
As the IPCC states in its Third Assessment, storm frequency and intensity is subject to natural
variability and cannot be predicted by climate models. This variability is apparently not
dependent on global temperature. Stanley Goldenberg noted in Science that:
“…variability in Atlantic hurricane activity is much greater than what would be
“expected” from a gradual temperature increase attributed to global warming…
Tropical North Atlantic [sea surface temperature] has exhibited a warming trend
of ~0.3 °C over the last 100 years; whereas Atlantic hurricane activity has not
exhibited trendlike variability, but rather distinct multi-decadal cycles.”
Likewise, hype about warming-induced tornado intensity increases is unfounded. These
powerful cyclones are not fueled by increased temperature, but by the temperature differential
between the cold north and the warm south. Since greenhouse warming should be most
pronounced in the Arctic winter, this differential should be reduced, and so should storm
intensity. This is in fact the observed trend for the last 50 years.
*
Total number of
severe tornadoes
(F3, F4, F5) from
1950-2002
Source:
www.src.noaa.gov
A GREENER EARTH
Hundreds of studies in the scientific journals describe the positive effects of enhanced CO2
on plant productivity. Sherwood Idso, et. al., provide an impressive compendium of these
beneficial effects at co2science.org, including:
-Increased growth rates and biomass production. Productivity gains as much as
300% in some species. Improvement in 95% of species studied.
-Improved water use efficiency and enhanced drought resistance.
-Greater heat resistance. Elevated optimum growing temperatures.
-Increased availability of plant biochemical components-greater medicinal value,
nutritional content boosted, more vigorous resistance to insect predators.
In addition, it has been demonstrated independently by David Easterling of the National
Climatic Data Center, and Scott Robeson, Indiana University, that winter temperature
increases have led to a lengthening of the growing season in the U.S. by as much as a week.
*
U.S. annual total precipitation.
Source: www.ncdc.noaa.gov
Finally, there has been a gradual increase
in precipitation in the U.S. in the last 100
years. All of these things considered, we
can look forward to a greener, better fed
world. Sylvan Wittwer, former head of
the Board on Agriculture of the National
Research Council, credits carbon dioxide
alone with a 10% increase in crop yield.
THE SUN
The true influence in climate change and variability is and always has been the Sun.
Astrophysicists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon produced strong evidence of a tight
correlation between solar output for the last century and the temperature pattern for that
period. This relationship reproduces the pattern that GCMs fail to hindcast.
The Sun also has other effects. In independent studies, Jan Veizer, University of Ottowa,
and Nir Shaviv of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University concluded that solar input is responsible
for a significant portion of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
A strong relationship between solar influx and temperature was also demonstrated by
J. Lean and D. Rind in the Journal of Climate, 1998.
*
This further underscores the
reason why climate models
fail to produce valid results.
Many variables enter into the
climate equation, and CO2,
along with the other trace
greenhouse gases, plays only
a minor role in global climate.
Dotted line=solar output measured by sunspot activity
Solid line=proxy temperature history
Dashed line=ground-based thermometer history
-Source: Lean and Rind, 1998.
SOURCE: A.B. Robinson, S.L. Baliunas, W.. Soon, and Z.W. Robinson www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
¶
THE DIMINISHING ROLE of CO2 ON
TEMPERATURE
This diagram illustrates a well established property
of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and water
vapor- as their concentration increases, their effect
on temperature is reduced. This means:
-Runaway, catastrophic temperature increase from
CO2 is, again, not supported by physical evidence.
-The modest increases that do result will occur in
those places where water vapor makes the least
contribution, particularly in the Arctic winter, about
the driest, coldest place on earth.
Source: Michaels, Meltdown, 2004
*
In addition, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration, per capita global emissions of CO2
have been leveling off and even declining since 1988.
This may actually be less than good news since the
effect of the gas on temperature is of little concern
and continued increase of CO2 means greater plant
productivity and a greener Earth.
*
PARADIGM and DISTORTION
. Why, then, do some members of academia, government, and the media cling so stubbornly to
the tales of disaster when all physical observations suggest persistence of natural cycles of
climate variability? The scientific facet has been masterfully elucidated by Patrick J. Michaels
in his book, Meltdown, in conjunction with the analysis of scientific attitude presented by
Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
-As these scientists point out, science has always operated on a paradigm-consensus basis within
a rigid framework of resistance to change. Kuhn states, “The transition of allegiance from
paradigm to paradigm is a conversion experience that cannot be forced. Lifelong resistance,
particularly from those whose productive careers have committed them to an older tradition…
is…an index to the nature of scientific research itself.”
-An example of this is the paper published by Svante Arrhenius in 1895. He postulated that
human emissions of CO2 might cause upward forcing of global temperatures. He was ignored
due to resistance by the then current ruling paradigm.
-The modern paradigm of human-induced disaster has likewise become entrenched in scientific
thinking in the same way that the flat earth was once accepted as proven fact.
-The system of gaining credentials- publication, peer review, and academic tenure-insures the
continuation of the paradigm whether that paradigm is accurate or not.
-As Kuhn also notes, “Individual scientists embrace a new paradigm for all sorts of reasons and
usually for several at once. Some of these reasons—for example the sun worship that helped
make Kepler a Copernican—lie outside the sphere of science entirely.” This postulate is well
exemplified in the remarks by Stephen Schneider about relativism in truth about climate science
reporting that we examined earlier. Science does not always drive the conclusions of scientists.
THE GOLDEN GOOSE
A popular axiom of investigation is “follow the money,” so let us do just that. The first massive
infusion of government influence into theoretical science in the U.S. culminated in a very bright
flash over Hiroshima in 1945. Following the success of the Manhattan Project the federal
government sought to institutionalize the relationship between science and national policy in
part by providing funding for research. Remember, “he who pays the piper calls the tune.”
-President Roosevelt authorized his science advisor Vannevar Bush to initiate the series of
events that resulted in the National Science Foundation and other avenues of outlay for federal
support of scientific research.
-The majority of the funding for climate science research comes from such sources, so far about
$20 billion since 1988. Scientists must compete for this largesse; departures from the paradigm
receive less attention and therefore less funding.
-The media is complicit in this by focusing its attention on the most extreme and lurid of the
climate scenarios offered by researchers; these enjoy the greatest, and in some cases the
only, attention, and this prompts further funding. This is a classic example of a “positive
feed-back loop”, a directional, self-reinforcing set of reactions much like a thermostat set to
turn the heat on when the temperature rises above 75°-it just keeps going.
-The fire is further fanned by well funded eco-advocacy groups who promote the alarmist
paradigm for their own purposes, and support a small but very mobile and very vocal activist
network.
This may prompt one to ask, “Why would the government spend billions of dollars and
initiate drastic policy when the bulk of evidence insists that no credible threat exists and
no ‘policy’ can have any significant effect on the situation?”
THREATS OTHER THAN WAR
After the U.S., and the world, had been maneuvered into two great wars and had since begun
the process of diluting and relinquishing many aspects of national sovereignty in the name of
“peace”, it became apparent that people were reluctant to surrender liberty and empower
government in the absence of a threat to that peace. The globalist elements in our leadership
sought sources of intimidation other than war to capture public imagination and continue the
climate of dependence on government intervention so carefully cultivated in the first half
of the 20th century.
In 1966, an interesting publication appeared titled The Report From Iron Mountain. It is a
detailed study for planned crisis in world where major war is a thing of the past. Some other
peril must be fabricated to instill the fear necessary for continued growth of government in a
world without war. Some have speculated that it is a leaked government study from the
Hudson Institute commissioned by Robert McNamara's Defense Department. Others claim it
to be an elaborate hoax by giddy anti-war academics. Regardless of its origins, it seems
apparent that its basic tenets have been adopted as policy by establishment operatives. In the
words of the report, "substitutes for the functions of war...alternate enemies" such as "massive
global environmental pollution" must be concocted to justify the ever expanding role of
government.
Like any organism, government seeks to feed and to grow, and the time tested means to insure
this is to instill fear. Massive global destruction is a useful vehicle for that purpose.
THE GREEN CURTAIN
In the 1960’s, Jerry Kirk was an activist with radical left-wing organizations such as the
Black Panthers and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). As he testified before both
the House and Senate Internal Security Committees, he broke from those socialist-centered
organizations when he discovered that they were in fact largely funded by the establishment
that he thought he had been opposing. Then, as now, the power structure provided the cause
for discontent, financed the opposition to that cause, and finally proposed the solution-more
government, more control.
Environmental groups are heavily funded by tax-exempt foundations with names like Ford
Rockefeller, Carnegie, Alcoa, and Hewlett. In 1953 the U.S. House of Representatives began
an investigation of the large foundations due to their repeated support of radical, subversive
organizations. The Reece Committee appointed Norman Dodd as Research Director for the
investigation. In a conversation with Mr. Dodd, H. Rowan Gaither, then President of the
powerful Ford Foundation, informed the investigator that the U.S. State Department and
other federal agencies had been operating for years under directives from the White House
“to so alter life in the United States as to make possible a comfortable merger with the
Soviet Union…We are continuing to be guided by just such directives.”
At least in name, the Soviet Union no longer exists, but the push to merge America with
foreign interests continues, using the endless wealth of tax-exempt foundations controlled
by ambitious globalists. And just as in the 1960s, emotional liberals and radicals of all
stripes are the tools, complicit or unwitting, of the establishment elite that has been quietly
manipulating the economy, politics, and social turmoil of America for the past century.
AGENDA 21
Also known as The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet, Agenda 21 was presented in
Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and was subsequently adopted as official United Nations policy.
It calls for the total regulation of every conceivable human activity. The Kyoto Protocol is
but a small part of the control sought under this bloated document. Its own words proclaim
its intent:
Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all
human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced—a major shift
in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented
redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a
concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated
into individual and collective decision-making at every level.
This is nothing more than Soviet-style social engineering with a layer of green paint. It is not
surprising, since one of the chief evangelists of the of the modern religion of earth worship is
none other than Mikhail Gorbachev-- ex-KGB official, former dictator, and unrepentant
communist. The late Jacques Cousteau delivered an address that was adopted as the unofficial
preamble to Agenda 21 at this so-called “earth summit”:
“An American-born child is environmentally too expensive to maintain to his or her adulthood
in a world economy. American women must be subjected to some manner of regulation beyond
licensing and mandatory abortion practices.
Unconventional and extreme measures must be implemented and enforced by global U.N.
mandate as it is deemed necessary. The bodies of these world eco-criminals should be
commercially yielded for reintroduction in the world's natural systemic food and nutrient
chains, in order to restore a more natural biological balance and order to our Sacred Earth.”
SUMMARY
This presentation has provided data and evidence in support of the following conclusions:
1) Human impact on climate change, if any, is minor.
2) Temperature variation over the last century was moderate and well within a
historically normal range well tolerated by the biosphere.
3) Future temperature potentials are known accurately with a small degree of error.
No catastrophic effects are expected, but proven benefits are anticipated.
4) No action, social or political, on our part will have any measurable effect on
reducing future climate change.
5) Implementation of political instruments such as the Kyoto Protocol will have
serious disastrous effects on national economies and living standards worldwide.
6) Entrenched scientific thinking is resistant to modification even in the presence
of overwhelming evidence contrary to the established paradigm.
7) Government involvement in funding scientific research promotes intellectual
inertia and stifles effective peer review of researchers.
8) Media exploitation of exaggerated claims of doom and gloom provide false
credibility to the paradigm.
9) The resultant fear and doubt is utilized to consolidate power, order all human
activity, and limit individual liberty in the name of a non-existent threat.
It is imperative that the truth about climate change be recognized and that the pressure
to make drastic and destructive political changes be resisted.
KNOWLEDGE and ACTION
This was not intended purely as a lesson in science, nor is it simply a documentary of current
events. This is an invitation to become informed, and a call to action to insist that any and all
public policy be based on sound principles, and not upon hysteria, hype, and questionable
science.
This presentation is far from comprehensive. It would require hours of time and hundreds of
slides to even begin to do justice to the overwhelming body of evidence and documentation
available. The key sources of information are supplied at the conclusion of the presentation,
as well as the sources cited throughout. Let this be the beginning, not the end of your search
for truth in this complex and contentious subject.
The global warming scare is but a small element of the pattern of misinformation being used
to direct policy decisions and manipulate public opinion; there is much, much more.
Pressure must be placed on Congress to base their decisions on accurate information, and it is
up to all of us to see that such information is made available to them, and to hold them fully
accountable for their actions.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
USED BRAIN ACADEMY
6060 South 300 West #2
Murray, UT 84107
E-mail:
[email protected]
CREDITS
Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global
Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media
by Patrick J. Michaels
Cato Institute. Wash., D.C. 2004
DIAGRAMS:
*Meltdown
¶ The New American
† CO2 Science
www.cato.org
Dr. Michaels is research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, senior
fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, and past president of the American Association
of State Climatologists. Winner 2003 climate science “Paper of the Year”, Assoc. of Am. Geographers
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co2science.org
An impressive compendium of climaterelated research and analysis is provided by
Sherwood Idso, Craig Idso, & Keith Idso
www.co2science.org
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New World Religion. William F. Jasper. The New American. September 23, 2002. Pp.11-14.
Eco-Agenda for Planetary Control. Jasper. TNA. September 23, 2002. Pp. 15-21.
The Sky Is Falling! Or Is It?. John F. McManus. TNA. September 8, 2003. Pp. 9-13.
Behind the Environmental Lobby. William Norman Grigg. TNA. April 4, 2005. Pp. 17-22.
Science, Politics and Death. A.B. Robinson and J.M. Orient. TNA. June 14, 2004. Pp. 18-23.
The New American. American Opinion Publishing,Inc. Appleton, WI.
www.thenewamerican.com
Produced by:
THE USED BRAIN ACADEMY
2006
COMPILED and NARRATED by MARK WHITNEY
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER JJ SUPRISE
MUSIC by RICK WAKEMAN
from JOURNEY to the CENTRE of the EARTH
with the LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
and the ENGLISH CHAMBER CHOIR
JANUARY 18, 1974. A&M RECORDS, INC.
This presentation is the product of The Used Brain Academy. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions or intentions of the
authors of the sources cited.