..continued
-----------------------
Here is the summary of their findings:
1- A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate. There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other green house gases are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape. There is no reason to limit human production of CO2, CH4, and other minor green house gases as has been proposed.
2- Predictions of catastrophic global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy. The empirical evidence - actual measurements of Earth's temperature and climate - shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, during four of the seven decades since 1940 when average CO2 levels steadily increased, U.S. average temperatures were actually decreasing.
3- Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in hydrocarbon use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge.
4- While major green house gas H2O substantially warms the Earth, minor green house gases such as CO2 have little effect.... The 6-fold increase in hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric temperature or on the trend in glacier length.
5- Solar activity and U.S. surface temperature are closely correlated...., but U.S. surface temperature and world hydrocarbon use are not correlated.
6- We also need not worry about environmental calamities even if the current natural warming trend continues. The Earth has been much warmer during the past 3,000 years without catastrophic effects. Warmer weather extends growing seasons and generally improves the habitability of colder regions.
7- Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not harmfully warmed the Earth, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will not do so in the foreseeable future. The CO2 produced does, however, accelerate the growth rates of plants and also permits plants to grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also flourishes, and the diversity of plant and animal life is increased.
Dr. Michael Griffin, the new NASA Administrator, looks at climate change in a refreshingly contrarian fashion. He has
stated:
To assume that [climate change] is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change.
There are other fundamental objections to the AGW theory:
(1) The infamous "Hockey Stick" statistical debacle, nicely summarized
here, effectively cherry-picked data from tree rings to estimate temperature change over the past 1000 years. The report erroneously declared that the largest increases in world temperature occurred in the 20th century. These results could not be reproduced by anyone. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) later found the statistical methods first employed inappropriate and the findings bogus.
(2) The reported NASA temperature
data glitch discovered by Canadian Computer Analyst Steve McIntyre that wrongly kicked all temperature records up several tenths of a degree was a severe setback for AGW modelers. This software "failure" was overseen by one of AGW's fiercest proponents, the notorious Dr. James Hanson. NASA's GISS and Hanson have recently come under fire again for poor data collection methods and
questionable accuracy.
(3) As recently presented in
American Thinker, Lord Monckton competently summarizes for us that many of the highly publicized AGW "facts" are simple documented anomalies of natural climate cycling -- designedly misrepresented for the cause of AGW.
To wit: The Oceans are not catastrophically rising nor are they warming. In fact, the oceans have been cooling since 2003. The Snows of Kilimanjaro are not melting but ablating because of friction due to a cooling atmosphere and natural cooling trends. The world's 160,000 glaciers are not suddenly receding, but appear to be re-advancing, including those ice shelves in Antarctic and the polar ice sheets, all of which cycle regularly in ice mass. Lord Monckton, a science-journalist, provides even more evidence
here.
(4) Finally let us not forget the astute investigation of automated weather stations by US Meteorologist
Anthony Watts. Watts painstakingly discovered that a large fraction of the nation's 1,200 stations have been wrongly sited in man-made heat-absorbing centers. (Examples include locations on rooftops, on slabs of heat absorbing concrete, next to air conditioners, diesel generators and asphalt parking lots, even at sewage treatment plants. Some are located in areas experiencing excessive nighttime humidity, and at non-standard observing heights, including one actually sinking into a swamp.) Watts' discovery profoundly undermined the veracity of historical temperature data documented in the United States -- data that had been used by AGW proponents.
There are three indisputable and fundamental facts that were wantonly ignored in the UN's IPCC sham of a report. The UN breathlessly but insidiously "forgot" to include the specifics that:
(1) The Earth has largely benefited by past warming cycle's and that these previous "warmings" had nothing to do with man's activities. These earlier natural cycles were not catastrophic events; they were, in fact, beneficial to all life forms. They provided warmer and longer growing seasons, more areas available for crops, etc. We know, for instance, that Greenland was once
green, that Eric the Red planted and grew grapes in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada, that the Romans planted grapes in England, etc.
(2) Solar/Sun Spot activity is the originator of most climatic change and most weather patterns on Earth. It is king. There is no larger factor of influence. CO2 influence is negligible and pales in comparison. CO2 follows the trend of temperature; it does not cause it.
(3) Subordinate to solar activity alone, atmospheric water vapor/cloud formation and movement is the largest known variable that influences temperature changes in the atmosphere of the earth, and the earth's oceans. Water vapor in the atmosphere is around 1000-10,000 times as important as atmospheric CO2.
These three quintessential and pivotal factors are not even discussed in the UN's IPCC report. This exclusion should raise a red flag in any intelligent mind. That's why so many of us are yelling from the rooftops about the absurdity of the report itself!
Instead of a true and open discourse, we see the daily dribble from the MSM and various liberally usurped science journals, dishonestly and falsely alleging a "consensus" when there is none.
Indeed, arrayed against the arcane burlesque of the United Nations IPCC with its politically selected 2500 Scientists, of which a core group of 600 exists, and a relatively small number of mediocre "scientists" here and there across the American landscape who have suddenly found notoriety or grant money in the global warming cause, are 31,072+ legitimate and viable scientists (of which I am one) who signed the American Petition Project declaring the Global Warming Hypothesis bogus found
here,
here and
here. We openly refute the UN's conclusions.
Here's the Petition Statement we dissenters signed in opposition:
"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
Let me assure you that we're not in good humor, nor take it kindly to be slurred and ridiculed by taking the other side in this debate. And our numbers are still growing. Indeed, we're angry that the vast majority of American Scientists will not be heard by the media. We're dismayed over the fact that the Global Warming fiasco has become politically popular and expedient to those left-wing politicians and power-brokers whose sole aim is to literally tax everything with a carbon footprint and give them control over all life, hidden within their PC guileful pretence to save the planet. They wish to save no one but themselves.
And the tide turns further. Of the 2500 originally aligned scientists and putative authors of the UN's IPCC report some 500 are no longer faithful to Big Al's errand. Many of these scientists discovered that their individual findings and comments were willfully misrepresented. All participant conclusions were unilaterally changed to adhere strictly to the United Nations objective of building support for world taxation and rationing of industrially useful energy. Since the original IPCC report (and there have been some 4 others now formally issued), the defecting 500 scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. Approximately 100 of these scientists are now open defectors. Others are currently suing the UN for the misuse of their good names and research. It is difficult to see why a thinking person would even consider the IPCC report as legitimate.
The entire IPCC process is but obfuscation by the secular and atheist Left. It has allowed the Left to conflate the vanity of secular opinion with scientific and/or moral truth. There is an easy and immediate remedy for their debacle. Will Rogers stated it simply: "When you are in a hole ... stop digging.... Please!"
Dr. Gregory Young is a neuroscientist and physicist, a doctoral graduate of the University of Oxford, Oxford, England. He is currently involved with a privately funded think-tank engaged in experimental biophysical research.
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