It may prove to be the most catastrophic event in the history of human civilization.
Or not.
It may cause massive flooding of coastal cities, ruinous melting of polar ice, the desertification of massive swaths of farmland in the breadbaskets of the world, and the death of billions of people.
Or it may lead to an age of enormous plenty and peak human health unrivaled in the history of man.
The “it,” of course, is global warming. And despite the fact that a fairly robust scientific consensus has emerged, proving that the average temperature of the earth is rising and that this phenomena has been caused by human activity, there remains a dedicated group of scientific outriders who refuse to bow to the will of the majority and instead, fight a rear guard action against the forces of regulation and global cooperation.
There’s much at stake in this debate; the future of man on the planet and the free market system, not to mention the way that science itself is viewed by an ever more skeptical, disbelieving public. This last is actually the crux of the matter because in order for any solutions to the problems of climate change to be implemented, there must be a political consensus to enact the punishing laws and regulations necessary to wean ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels that most global warming advocates point to as the potential cause of climate change.
In the short term, there is a 100% chance of reduced economic activity, loss of jobs, drastic reductions in GDP growth, and what would amount to a massive change in lifestyle for Americans if the advocates get their way. If anyone tells you anything differently, do not listen to them. Many of them were the same soothing voices from the 1970’s who assured us that clean air regulations wouldn’t destroy the steel and coal industries in America. And while there were certainly other factors involved in the massive downsizing of those basic industries – including the utter stupidity of unions and company management – there is also no denying the role played by government regulation in their demise. It is disingenuous of global warming advocates to downplay the consequences of what they are proposing.
There is also no denying the serious strain of anti-capitalist, anti-technology ideology that permeates the non-scientific global warming cheerleading squad of UN bureaucrats, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s), Green Party politicians, and ignorant celebrities who agitate for the enactment of global regulations that would put a serious damper on economic growth. For many of these Luddites, global warming is a means to an end. To varying degrees, the belief in the supremacy of the state over the individual and the government’s ability to regulate behavior are at the bottom of their lobbying. In fact, the non-scientific community of global warming enthusiasts believes that our only hope for salvation lies in some kind of super-national governmental entity with the ability to override the will of individual states to make decisions for their own people.
This is where the Kyoto Protocols were heading in the future as the current regime is only the first step. Recognizing this:
[T]he U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98)[, which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States”.
It is incorrect to say that Byrd-Hagel was a rejection of the treaty. In fact, Kyoto has never been voted on by the Senate. The reason is contained in that sense of the Senate resolution; India and China are exempt from the requirements of the protocols. There is also an excellent case to be made that Kyoto would result “in serious harm” to our economy.
But it is science that we must turn to in order to discover whether or not the human species is in trouble. And unfortunately, there are not now nor are there likely to be any time soon clear answers on the viability of global warming theories.
In this excellent article that appears in this weekend’s Washington Post Magazine, Joel Achenbach dissects the global warming skeptics community while highlighting the enormous problems that climate modelers have had with predictions:
Let us say a word in praise of uncertainty. It is a concession to an interesting and complicated planet that is full of surprises. The fog of uncertainty surrounding climate change is routinely cited as a reason to wait before making cuts in greenhouse emissions. But if we wait for that fog to break, we’ll wait forever.Isaac Held, the NOAA climate modeler, is the first to admit that the models aren’t perfect. “Clouds are hard,” he says. The models on his computer screen are incomprehensible to the untrained eye. But Held argues that the models are conservative. For global warming to be less of a problem than is currently anticipated, all the uncertainties would have to break, preferentially, toward the benign side of things.
Moreover, we don’t even know all the things that we don’t know. James Hansen, the prominent NASA scientist, points out that the models don’t realistically include ice sheets and the biosphere—all the plants and animals on Earth. The global climate surely has more surprises for us.
Given the enormous costs that lowering emissions would entail, (estimates range from a low of around $125 billion over the course of a decade to a high of $1.2 trillion during the same period), the question of “waiting for the fog to break” becomes relevant despite what Mr. Achenbach says – especially since much of that “fog” is the result of questionable science; at least in the eyes of the skeptics. Meteorologist Bill Gray, perhaps the leading hurricane expert on the planet:
“I’ve been in meteorology over 50 years. I’ve worked damn hard, and I’ve been around. My feeling is some of us older guys who’ve been around have not been asked about this. It’s sort of a baby boomer, yuppie thing.”Gray believes in the obs. The observations. Direct measurements. Numerical models can’t be trusted. Equation pushers with fancy computers aren’t the equals of scientists who fly into hurricanes.
“Few people know what I know. I’ve been in the tropics, I’ve flown in airplanes into storms. I’ve done studies of convection, cloud clusters and how the moist process works. I don’t think anybody in the world understands how the atmosphere functions better than me.”
In just three, five, maybe eight years, he says, the world will begin to cool again.
Gray isn’t alone. The skeptical community includes some of the leading climate scientists in the world:
In the world of the skeptics you’ll come across Richard Lindzen, an MIT climate scientist who has steadfastly maintained for years that clouds and water vapor will counteract the greenhouse emissions of human beings. You’ll find S. Fred Singer, author of Hot Talk, Cold Science, who points to the positive side of the melting Arctic: “We spent 500 years looking for a Northwest Passage, and now we’ve got one.” You’ll quickly run across Pat Michaels, the University of Virginia climatologist and author of Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media . You might dip into TCSDaily.com, the online clearinghouse for anti-global-warming punditry. You’ll meet the Cooler Heads Coalition and the Greening Earth Society.The skeptics point to the global temperature graph for the past century. Notice how, after rising steadily in the early 20th century, in 1940 the temperature suddenly levels off. No—it goes down! For the next 35 years! If the planet is getting steadily warmer due to Industrial Age greenhouse gases, why did it get cooler when industries began belching out carbon dioxide at full tilt at the start of World War II?
The scientific advocates for climate change respond with a barrage of their own:
Some of the anomalies cited by the skeptics go away over time. Remember that graph showing the world’s temperature leveling off and actually cooling from 1940 to 1975, even as the industrial economies of the planet were going full blast? The mainstream climate scientists think one factor may have been air pollution—aerosols pumped out by smokestacks, dimming sunlight before it reached the surface. In the early 1970s, governments passed air pollution controls, such as the Clean Air Act, that required scrubbers on smokestacks. The skies cleared. And the temperature has been racing upward ever since.What about the Medieval Warm Period? If human industry causes warming, why were the Vikings sailing around the North Atlantic to godforsaken places like Greenland and setting up farming communities 1,000 years ago? Many scientists answer that the Medieval Warm Period wasn’t a global phenomenon. You can’t draw global conclusions from the experience of the North Atlantic.
And it goes on. In the meantime, what are politically aware but scientifically challenged lay people like you and me to do?
It would be great if we had the scientific acumen to dissect the various theories and climate models that purport to prove that a catastrophe is on the way. But most of us don’t. This does not mean, that we should wallow in our ignorance and spout inanities about what Al Gore said or what the latest global warming debunking evidence shows. For myself, and I believe a growing number of people, our agnosticism on global warming is indicative of our suspicion regarding the confluence of science and politics – an incendiary mixture to be sure. Both sides feature advocates who are using the controversy over global warming to advance a political point of view. The danger is obvious; either the politics of global warming will swamp our economies in an unnecessary regulatory briar patch of emission reductions and an infringement on personal liberty or we will sleepwalk our way to disaster.
Is there a way to take the politics out of the global warming debate? Surely, not in any realistic sense. But there has to be a way to lower the volume and keep the debate from descending into personal invective and partisan hackery. Given the stakes, there really isn’t any alternative, is there?
UPDATE: 5/28
Matt Stoller: Certifiable Idiot:
Al Gore is now leading a different conversation, on global warming, and that’s the conversation we’re going to start having. The first salvo is his movie. The second salvo, before we can talk solutions, is to make it very clear that accepting industry spam on global warming is not going to cut it. It’s time to put people on the record. Since Congressional Republicans won’t act, we will. The Roots Project is going to work to have a resolution introduced into Congress that says that global warming is man-made and that the the scientific consensus behind it is real. That’s it. The resolution will call for no actions. The only purpose is to put global warming on the national agenda, to make it a voting issue in 2006.
Stoller, like Gore, is less interested in Global Warming as a process or a problem and more as a political issue to bash Republicans with.
And it’s obvious he didn’t read Achenbach’s article very closely. If he did, he would’ve seen that most of the “industry” (which, he doesn’t bother to identify) is in fact all greened up and on board the Global Warming gravy train. To dismiss the critiques of scientists like Gray and Lindzen who’ve never taken a corporate dollar in their lives as “industry paid liars” is breathtaking ignorance of the issue. But then, Stoller is not interested in the issue except as a political club – which makes him more dangerous than any industry spokesman could possible dream of being.
9:00 am
Global Warming being caused by man is a myth, built on distortions, built on junk
science. In the 70’s the big idea was global cooling, it was going to bring on a new ice age, it didn’t happen so the super-genius climate scientists needed to save face and scare up a new theory to fund new research, so they invented global warming. The climate of the earth is controlled by one thing and one thing only, and the bitches name is Mother Nature, period, dot, bingo
9:36 am
Michael Crichton in a Cal Tech Lecture in January 2003 stated, “Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
Michael Crichton is widely despised in the environmental world. Why? Because he is skeptical of the conclusions of the accepted consensus and the complete and total unwillingness of the consensus to discuss or even contemplate any other conclusions. He does not question the fact of a warming trend. He does not question that man contributes to it. He questions whether man is the only culprit and if there is anything we can legitimately do to reverse the warming.
I have worked as an environmental professional for almost 20 years and in that time I have found the one area of which we know so much but really know so little is how the environment around us works. We can talk and provide documentation all day long regarding temperatures, tides, winds, clouds, O2 and H2O levels, and all of the other things that are evident in the world around us. And yet we can’t, with any real certainty, predict the weather for the next day. With that in mind, how can we predict what is essentially a climatological problem for the next century? And do so to the point where any question or mention of discussion is vilified.
Any student of the earth knows the planet has suffered period when it has been much warmer than it is now and much cooler. These cycles have occurred without the presence of man’s influence. These cycles have been of long and short duration. I do not know whether man’s influence upon the planet is such that we are creating a disaster. I do know that there is at least questions and anomalies that remain unresolved. And I think we should at least take the time to address these questions before we dismantle our economy in order to prevent what may be nothing.
9:44 am
SShiell:
An excellent, thought provoking comment. And you correctly take me to task for using the term “consensus” so cavalierly.
The problem with global warming is that it has jumped the bounds of pure science and largely resides in the political sphere, hence, the correct usage of “consensus.” It would be more accurate to say that there is a substantial body of scientific opinion that global warming is a real threat to the continued existence of human civilization as we know it.
I would like to gently disagree with the notion that we can’t do anything about it at this point. I do so for the same reason that I’m an agnostic on the entire issue; we just don’t know enough to say one way or the other. Will reducing CO2 emissions help? No one knows – which makes the draconian measures proposed by the anti-capitalists even more insane.
My only hope is that the decibel level can somehow be lowered so that rational discussion can replace hyperbole and name calling.
10:02 am
I happen to be a lifelong sailor and amateur meteorologist so have a rudimentary understanding of the science. I’m also old enough to remember the impending ice age from the ‘70’s.
There are already studies of actual temperatures in East Anglia that show a flattening of temperatures over the last five years. Given global warming on Mars and Jupiter I would tend to be less arrogant in believing that mankind is entirely responsible for, or able to to respond to, changes in solar emissions.
It will make a great debate for a few years until things are known to be cooling down again. The positive in all this is it will force a move away from hydrocarbon fuels which are not renewable or inexhaustible. Hopefully to Nuclear/Hydrogen or even newer yet unknown technologies.
The one thing I know is that man is not going to starve if the average temperature rises 2 or 3 degrees celsius over the next century. Man may elect or be required to migrate inland and North or South as the climate changes. Nothing new about that. It’s time to buy farm and ranch land in Canada and Siberia for your great great grandchildren. Either that or learn to build Dutch Dykes.
When The Al Gores of the world get on your nerves read Bill Gray and Fred Singer.
10:09 am
Rat:
Another great comment. I would add to your list of skeptical reading Professor Lindzen who has had a couple of pieces in TCS Daily – which is a great place for Kyoto deubunking, btw.
And your point about human adaptabilty is spot on. Reading climate alarmists when they write about coastal flooding, one would think that residents of Los Angeles are going to stand around and watch as the water laps at thier ankles and then slowly rises until they drown. Of course we have the example of Holland whose residents built the dyke system more than 800 years ago not to mention other, more salutory effects of a rise in temperature including an increase in the temperate zone that would increase crop production and yeilds.
Trying to get that information out in the present climate is impossible, however.
11:20 am
Rick;
Do you remember when Reagan claimed that trees emitted more pollution than cars? Do you remember laughing at such a suggestion? Well, I do. Believe it or not they actually do generate pollution. Actually, just certain types of trees such as many members of the oak family.
http://www.chennaionline.com/science/Environment/environment24.asp
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/01/010109223032.htm
12:59 pm
[...] And he has another one out on the skepticism surrounding the global warming/Chicken Little pronunciamentos. You need to go read it right away. [...]
1:03 pm
Rick: A quick test to assess the validity of anything written about global warming is the presence or absence of discussion about the role of water vapor. Both carbon dioxide and water vapor are triatomic molecules and it is the electron dispersion across this three atom geometry that allows absorption of radiant energy. This ability to absorb energy may be the reason the chemical combination of carbon dioxide and water underlies all organic chemistry, and thus life itself. Of the two molecules, however, water vapor can variably comprise up to 4% of the molecular atmosphere, while carbon dioxide makes up less than a half percent. Water vapor is what enables the essential natural green house effect and CO2 activity is little more than background noise.
3:36 pm
This is certainly a complex issue. The Michael Crichton quote is very interesting and largely true, but the problem with global environmental science is that the scale and complexity of the systems don’t lend themselves well to “verifiable” and “repeatable” results. How is it possible to test a global warming hypothesis accurately and free from bias? I don’t see how it can be done.
We do know that man’s influence affects climate from the local up to at least the regional if not the continental level. The jury is still out on global climate change, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to extrapolate that we may have an effect on global systems.
From what I remember of the global cooling scenarios from the 1970’s, they seemed to primarily revolve around nuclear winter scenarios and pollution from fires and power plants. I don’t really see what that debate has to do with global warming today. As an interesting side note, I watched a Tivo’d episode of Nova the other night that talked about “global dimming.” According to the scientists on the show, pollution has increased cloud cover and therefore decreased the amount of solar energy that reaches the planet’s surface. They calculated that the global average of the effect was about 1 degree centigrade, which is a rather large amount. So ironically, pollution is “saving†us from even greater warming. Maybe we should build more dirty coal power plants.
The most interesting part of the show was an analysis of temperatures across the USA during the time aircraft were grounded after 9/11. Contrails over certain congested parts of the country were significantly reducing the amount of solar energy hitting the USA and moderating temperatures. During the 3 day period where there were no flights, the range of temperatures across the USA increased, meaning that nights were slightly cooler and days were slightly warmer. The changes (which were averages taken from about 6000 readings across the country) were more dramatic during that 3 day period than at any other since at least the 50’s.
Finally, one thing I don’t hear discussed much is the mini ice age that struck Northern Europe from about the 15th – early 19th centuries. When I lived in England, I remember seeing paintings from that time of people ice-skating on the Thames – something that’s unthinkable now. That this mini ice age occurred is undeniable, but I haven’t seen any studies that try to answer the big “why” question. It’s certainly conceivable that the increase in temperatures we see now is at least partly the result of the warming from the end of this “ice age.”
In any event, this is certainly an interesting and controversial topic. I would also like to see a more rational discussion. The sad fact is, it seems like 1/2 the people in the country are zealots in one direction, and the other 1/2 in the other direction
4:32 pm
“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus.”
Not true, because science is social, just like any other human activity. It’s not enough to be right—you also have to convince other scientists. At any given time, the best guess we have about a question that science can speak to is the consensus of the professionals. Sure, there may be some brilliant maverick who actually knows better than everyone else. But there’s no way to distinguish her from the crackpots without proof. In this case, the proof may be 100 years in the making. It’s not an experiment that can be repeated, so properly speaking it’s not even science. The best we’ll have is a good guess by the professionals. If you don’t like what they have to say, there are always plenty of crackpots. Take your pick.
4:50 pm
Today we have global warming, 30 years ago it was “the next ice age” and swine flu. We’ve been told that alar on apples was going to kill us all. A couple of years ago it was sars. These folks are so certain that we’re going to fry, or drown, depending on your location, but not a one can tell with any certainty what the weather will be tuesday after next ! If some vain glorious hack job, Gore, and some over blown house of buffoonery, the U.N. are telling us that the planet is going to fry, my inclination is to ask….how much money and power are you getting out of this ? This is a boondoggle to rival all boondoggles. Global warming will really be a problem when Gore and huffington et al start taking the bus.
7:57 pm
Thirty years of so ago we were destined to live in a deep freezer within a few years. Now we have a few weird weather experts predicting we’re all gonna burn up, but we have 10 times as many experts saying it’s a crock and all we’re having in a normal weather cycle. Based on the lack of evidence and result of the scare 30 years ago i believe the ‘panic’ crowd is just that, a panic crowd with no facts. Algore is too stupid to get in out of the rain on his own. Reminds me of a newly hatched turkey standing in the rain with his mouth open until he drowns.
9:44 am
My major problem with the scientists who work on models, is that their models are really quite stupid. They are attempting to model chaotic systems without understanding the basics of them. The biggest flaws these models have is what is the effect of water vapor on the planets heat exchange rate with space and what effect does CO2 have on the biosphere? The first one they ignore, for the most part, when they include clouds their models rush off to some meta-stable state (giving Earth an atmosphere like Mars or Venus depending whether the weather goes cooling or heating).
What is incresed CO2 going to do to the biosphere? Plants spend a lot of energy trapping CO2, just because its is so damned scarce. They use specilist cells to trap CO2 as bicarbonate, which is passed on to the carbon fixing cells. In plants like bamboo, this is a large fraction of the plants energy buget. If CO2 fixing get easier, then we should have more plants. More plants, means more water vapor at ground level (I will ignore the oceans), and that will cause global warming.
Finnaly, a question for you all. What is the solubility of CO2 in water ice? Do the ice caps contain significant levels of CO2, when compared to liquid water? Does melting of ice act as a carbon sink?
11:04 am
Global warming.Gore is an idiot
!Who created the ice age?Gore is running around blaming bush and americans for the destruction of this earth.The same 60’s crap and berkely liberal soft coward like blame game.I have lived in this country for 26 years and it is the greatest country on earth.Polls are for idiots!We are fine and all we have to do is finish what we start and support Bush and throw Kennedys,durbins,pelosis and all democrats out until they stop whining and get some character.
10:35 am
Great comments above. I found a very interesting presentation by Professor Lindzen last year when I was looking into some of the hysteria on global warming after Katrina. It’s worth a look.
9:34 am
Eye on the Watcher’s Council
As you may know the members of the Watcher’s Council each nominate one of his or her own posts and one non-Council post for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here. Here’s wha…
2:33 am
The Council Has Spoken!
First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… the winning entries in the Watcher’s Council vote for this week are Who Do You Trust With Your Constit…
11:05 pm
John Tyndall (1820-1893), one of the great English physicists, did a study of the “radiative properties” of atmospheric gases in 1859 as it was clear to him that air was absorbing energy, but how? To facilitate his work Tyndall developed the first ratio spectrophotometer which he used to measure the relative energy absorption of atmospheric gasses.
Tyndall discovered that nitrogen and oxygen are transparent to heat waves, “IR,” infrared radiation, absorbing none, but water vapor, the next most abundant gas in air, absorbed IR very well, but water as gas at any temperature under 100 degrees C is a vapor that can be forced out of the air by gases that are far above their boiling points, like nitrogen and oxygen.
The amount of water vapor in air is limited to 3% by the gas/vapor preference mechanism. Only a small fraction of the water molecules will have enough energy to escape the liquid and become gas.
Nitrogen boils at -196 degrees Celsius, oxygen at -183 and water at plus 100, almost 300 degrees up the scale! Nitrogen and oxygen have much greater vapor pressure or tendency to be gasses than water and force it out of the air. Rain, dew, mist, clouds, sweat and frost are all products of an adjustmen in the gas equilibrium between nitrogen, oxygen and water vapor which make 99% of our air.
Tyndall worked with saturated air, containing 3% water vapor, but it varies around the world between one and three percent. Gases of less than one percent concentration are called “trace gases†and not thought of as significant. The next gas John Tyndall worked with was carbon dioxide and he found that it too absorbs IR, but only about 1/12th as well as water vapor. In Tyndall’s time carbon dioxide was present to 280 parts/million or 0.28% and where the carbon dioxide molecule is 2.44 times as heavy as water all factors meant water vapor was 3215 times as significant in absorbing IR as carbon dioxide in saturated air, i.e. responsible for 99.96% of the IR capture.
In the NASA “Earth Observatory” web “On the Shoulders of Giants” we see: “He (Tyndall) concluded that among the constituents of the atmosphere, water vapor is the strongest absorber of radiant heat and is therefore the most important gas in controlling Earth’s surface temperature.”
Late in the 19th century Svante Arrhenius, (1859-1927) the greatest Swedish chemist investigated IR capture with the idea of warming Sweden. It is a cold, dark country much of the time, but fossil evidence indicated bananas had grown there as recently as 6,000 BC.
Arrhenius studied the work of Tyndall as well as doing some lab work on his own and abandoned the idea. The Carbon dioxide in air was too poor an absorber. All of this is documented on the NASA website “On The Shoulders Of Giants†under “Arrenhius.â€
In our review of the literature and correspondence with authors we have found that most ignore water vapor because it is variable! Their problem has been, “What concentration to pick?†The solution is to write maximum and minimum concentration equations, input values and assume the result is somewhere in the area between the two curves. With the range from one to three percent water vapor by weight exceeds carbon dioxide by 263 to 789 times and by chemical moles 641 to 1925 times. Omission is not acceptable practice, but it has been done consistently.
Government paid scientists know from where the money comes, taxes. If they can show Congress where to tax more they will advance their careers and thrive. It is just that simple.
The Numerical Case
At http://eob.gsfc.nasa.gov/Library/Giants/Tyndall/ Tyndall’s data is shown. His charts include absorption spectra for the range 1 to 10 um, (micrometers, 10-6 m) as this is the range for infrared, “heat” radiation. When the charts are printed on 8 ½ by 11 paper the critical graph area is 125 mm wide and 15 mm tall. It has an area of 1875 mm2. Of this CO2 absorption covers only 45 mm2 while water vapor covers 555 mm2, 12.3 times the area, and “heat wave,†IR absorption, of carbon dioxide, CO2.
Heat wave, IR, absorption is proportional to the area under the curves. Water vapor (H2O) IR absorption is 12.3 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2) in air. And, there are many more water vapor molecules than carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is now 380 parts/million, 0.00038 or 0.038%. And, carbon dioxide, CO2, has a molecular weight of 44 g/mole where water vapor is only 18 g/mole. So there are between 62.4 and 193 times as many water molecules in air carbon dioxide by:
[Minimum] (44g/mole/18 g/mole) X (0.01/0.00038) = 62.4
[Maximum] (44g/mole/18g/mole) X (0.03/0.00038) = 193
This is important as absorption is also directly proportional to the number of molecules. And, the overall effect is a product of the relative absorption and the ratio of concentrations. Thus:
Min. 12.3 X 62.4 = 767.5 or Max. 12.3 X 193 = 2374
Water vapor is between 767.5 and 2374 times more significant in “global warming” than carbon dioxide, thus responsible for 99.87% to 99.96% of all atmospheric heating, but it is never mentioned in any article, textbook or film produced by major media, government or grant supported scientist. And, please note that with relative ease we have dealt with the issue of variability.
The Forcing Concept
As water vapor began to appear in the discussions of global warming a new concept called “forcing†has followed. The authors admit to the primary role of water vapor, but tie it to carbon dioxide saying that water vapor’s concentration is dependent on the amount of carbon dioxide, i.e. that carbon dioxide “forces†water into the air! The true case is the reverse: Adding carbon dioxide forces water out of the atmosphere because carbon dioxide is a true gas normally where it boils at -78 degrees Celsius, but water is a vapor where it boils at 100 degrees Celsius.
Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere forces water out of the air and reduces atmospheric heating which may explain the temperature declines seen immediately after great increases in industrial activity in WWII. From 1940 to 1970 there was decline in our average temperature and talk of a coming ice age.
Statistical Significance
In the July 27, 2006 hearing of the House Global Climate Change Subcommittee the expert witnesses stated that of the 186 gigatons of carbon dioxide produced annually on the planet man makes only six gigatons. The committee members did not see the insignificance of our contribution at only 3.22% and that cutting our contribution 50% would only take 0.4% from where we contribute only 25% in the first place, but they did determine that the global warming movement at the highest level of science includes 42 scientists who take turns co-authoring papers and acting on peer review panels which like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. It is really significant that these same 42 taxpayer paid scientists are the some ones that had sounded the carbon dioxide over the last 20 years.
The dominance of water vapor in “global warming” and the real effect of adding carbon dioxide is bad news for bureau-building, tax-seeking socialists and panic-pushing Marxist environmentalists. Water vapor cannot be taxed, regulated, treatied for or controlled. Water is everywhere, it covers three-fourths of the planet and is totally out of political control. When facts are inconvenient the elected class ignores them.
And, where this evidence is clearly shown on a NASA website but is never quoted or cited is ironic. Many responsible professionals have been guided into “politically correct” positions that jeopardize reputations when their cavalier ways with science and truth are known.
Blaming carbon dioxide offers new taxes, regulations, bureaus, treaties, land and resource grabbing, demonizing big business and “evil corporations.” So the elected class and their complicitous media take the hypothesis that serves their purpose. How much tax and how much power?
We have about 60 million vehicles on the road in America. The average gas mileage is about 15 miles per gallon and the average vehicle is driven about 15,000 miles per year. It uses 1,000 gallons of fuel per year. And, the total amount of fuel used in the US is 60 billion gallons per year. If socialist Democrats can get another dollar of tax on every gallon that is $60 billion dollars they can spend buying votes and making Americans more dependent on them. But, that is only the beginning.
Suppose all these people that hate us could get us to sign the Kyoto treaty: We would abide by it; they would not. As we have seen many times to communists a treaty is a piece of paper. The agreement during the term of the Clinton administration called for a 40% pullback from what were using in 1999. That would be a more than a 50% cut from what we use now. The Clinton/Gore plan was to pile taxes on gasoline until use fell back to these levels. What would it take? Five dollars a gallon, six or seven? They would have gone there, and beyond.
With half the energy America can produce only half the goods, selling at twice the price and employ half the people. What happens to the other half? This would be a time twice as bad as The Great Depression when 25% were unemployed and a victory for international socialism over capitalism.
We can predict what would have happened had Al Gore been elected. It’s all in his book, “Earth In The Balance.” There he wrote: “The internal combustion engine is a greater threat to the people of the world than nuclear weapons.” He wanted to eliminate it totally.
The last census taken before the development and utilization of the internal combustion engine was in 1900. In 1900 America had 70 million people in a horse-drawn, steam powered, sailing ship served economy. That is all 1900 technology could support and it wasn’t even that good. In 1900 one million Americans starved to death. We were actually beyond our limit in what today many fantasize to have been a better world.
Thanks to automobiles, trucks, tractors, farm equipment, busses, Diesel trains and ships, jet aircraft, and on, all internal combustion powered, we have abundance for 300 million people. Food is our largest export. If Al Gore had gotten his way 230 million Americans would starve to death to put “Earth in balance,” in his terms.
For more factual information on this issue go to: http://www.ncpa.org and input “Global Warming” to the search engine on the left side of the page. The National Center for Policy Analysis is a non-profit, non-partisan organization with full documentation on its’ sources and publications.
Adrian Vance
4:56 pm
I’m not exactly a scientist. I do have a B.S. in Chemical Engineering… but, more importantly I have common sense. So I keep asking friends and family that buy all the Al Gore pseudo science; So… we can’t even accurately predict what the weather will be like next weekend, much less what the hurricane season will be like next year in the Caribbean. Yet a frighteningly large number of people believe there are scientists that can pinpoint the exact effects of macro global climatological changes a century or more from today! Really??? I assume these are the great great great grand children of the scientists that were putting leaches on people a very few centuries ago.
4:46 pm
Adrian Vance said
“...In 1900 America had 70 million people in a horse-drawn, steam powered, sailing ship served economy. That is all 1900 technology could support and it wasn’t even that good. In 1900 one million Americans starved to death. We were actually beyond our limit in what today many fantasize to have been a better world…”
In 1900…
The United States Population was about 76 million (close enough)
Statistics indicate less than 600,000 Americans died in total. It’s a big download but the records are still intact. You can check for yourself.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/vsus/historical/historical.htm
Inanition (i.e. starvation) is listed as 2415 deaths.
Starvation through negligence is listed at 29 deaths.
Marasmus (infant protien deficiency) took 5934 lives
“Lack of care” was cited as the death of 5026 children
Scurvy (due to insufficient fruits and vegetables) 41
Even if you count everything (assuming no overlap between marasmus and lack of care, scurvy and inanition ect.) 13445 people died from poor nutrition in the year of 1900 according to the CDC.
Unless 72 out of 73 deaths by starvation went completely unreported and less than half of total deaths were covered up your “factoid” is utter nonsense.
3:53 pm
Whoever believes in Global Warming has not read the Bible. The Bible clearly said not worry about anything because if we die we go to heaven. So all these internetand news about how the whole world will end because of this global tragdy is really quite absurd.