Junk Science: The Great Global Warming Race

Can global warming’s vested interests close the deal on greenhouse gas regulation before the public wises up to their scam?

By Steven Milloy

Al Gore turning carbon into cold cash

Al Gore turning carbon into cold cash

A new study indicates alarmist concern and a need to explain away the lack of actual global warming. Researchers belonging to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, reported in Nature (May 1) that after adjusting their climate model to reflect actual sea surface temperatures of the last 50 years, “global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations … temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming.”

You got that? IPCC researchers project no global warming over the next decade because of Mother Nature. Although the result seems stunning in that it came from IPCC scientists who have always been in the tank for manmade global warming, it’s not really surprising since the notion of manmade climate change has never lived up to its billing.

When NASA’s James Hansen sounded the alarm in Congress 20 years ago, he predicted that rising concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, or CO2, would drive global temperatures higher by 0.34 degrees Celsius during the 1990s. But surface temperatures increased during that decade by only 0.11 degrees Celsius and lower atmosphere temperatures actually decreased.

Global temperatures remain well below an El Nino-driven 1998 spike despite ever-increasing atmospheric CO2. Global warming hysterics purport that manmade emissions of CO2 are the primary driver of global climate and that controlling emissions will favorably affect climate. While this is obviously not so since it virtually supposes that without human activity climate change would not occur, it nevertheless remains their viewpoint.

The Nature study, however, reasserts Mother Nature in her rightful place as our climate dominatrix. Although there is no evidence that manmade CO2 emissions play any detectable role in climate change, the very idea that Mother Nature may cool the planet despite humanity’s furious output of greenhouse gases should be even worse for the climate alarmists’ way of thinking.

It would mean that greenhouse gas emissions are actually beneficial, since without them, Mother Nature’s cooling could be quite damaging. The last time the Earth significantly cooled was during the 14th to 19th centuries — a period known as the Little Ice Age.

Read the rest of this story at Fox News

17 Responses to Junk Science: The Great Global Warming Race

  1. Earl E May 3, 2008 at 3:59 pm #

    Please do not leave your car engine running with the garage door closed. Your benign auto emmissions will kill you.

    Man wants to argue he has no impact. Tell that to the farmers who used to use the Colorodo river. Because man diverted the water supply, he changed all lives downstream.

    And yet you would argue man has no impact?

    Man leaves a footprint wherever he goes, and it is often that very signerature that spells disaster for the local inhabitants.

    By releasing the water back into the Mississippi delta and restoring the marsh, we enable mother nature to help us combat hurricanes.

    By mistakenly releasing chinese carp into the Mississippi, we now have lost all other fish.

    So you keep talking about Al Gore, the scam, and sit back on your new deck built with Brazilian rainforest wood, and enjoy it while it lasts.

    Next time you fill up at the gas station, think about that small Iraqi girl, who lost both her legs and her parents in a mistaken laser-guided assault.

    Imagine her blood and pain flowing through your carburator, and her spirit releasing into the atmosphere as you pick up your cigarettes and beer.

    Most people are not equipped to deal with the enormity of their impact, let alone do anything about it. Remember, the Saudi prince who pockets your gas profits invests in people who are at the raggety edge, and you are financing your own terror.

    What goes around, comes around.

  2. Phidippides May 4, 2008 at 8:28 pm #

    Goes to show what was evident from the beginning when the issue was claimed to be “beyond debate” a few years ago. Global climate is simply too complex to know all the variables involved and to assert that something in the distant future is a undeniable fact.

    I think global climate issues should be studied but conclusions should be cautious and skeptics certainly should not be marginalized. Furthermore, we should examine the motives of those who want to advocate mass acceptance of global warming theory and government policy based on it.

  3. John Fitzgerald May 5, 2008 at 9:03 am #

    If, on Tuesday, the weatherman tells me that there is an 80% chance of rain on Saturday, I’m going to buy an umbrella. If, on Thurdsay, he then tells me that there is only a 60% chance of rain, I’m going to put my umbrella in the car. I also understand that his predictions are subject to change. I also know that his prediction will be perfect on Saturday.

    If you go to http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/, you will find that the data for global temperatures. Clearly, global warming is a fact. Obviously, the IPCC report is about a model which they are continuously adjusting as they collect new data. I am quite sure, that like the models which have been built for predicting rain, it will continue to be improved and willl retain some level of error. And, like weather models, I don’t need to get “hysterical” to know I would be stupid not to take an umbrella.

    So, what’s your point? That your mother was a dominatrix?

  4. Dan McGrath May 5, 2008 at 2:44 pm #

    It would be refreshing if certain people posting comments would first read the complete article they are commenting on, and then post something relevant to it.

  5. Jimberg98 May 9, 2008 at 2:23 pm #

    The global warming hysteria scenario is more like this: The weatherman tells me that there’s an 80% chance of massive flooding by my house on Saturday where it never floods and I take out a mortgage on my house to have a levy built around my house. On Thursday, he tells me that he talked to other weatherman and they feel it’s going to rain a lot, but no flooding. Then on Saturday it just rains like it usually does in the spring. Now I just feel stupid that I wasted a bunch of money that I just didn’t have to build a levy that I’ll never use. I’ll then be told that it was better to be safe than sorry even though I’m bankrupt. It’s a good thing, though, that the weatherman also owned a levy building business.

  6. John Adams May 15, 2008 at 6:37 am #

    The graphs at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ use error prone data from land and sea weather stations. They include errors due to heat island and many other environmental errors. Real scientists use the much more accurate ballon and satellite measurements. All of this is meaningless when you consider the fact that CO2 always follows warming. Actually, some warming would be a good thing for both man and Polar bears. By the way, what is the optimum global temperature?

  7. Mike Carlson May 15, 2008 at 3:08 pm #

    All you have to do is ask the question “who benefits?” from this issue- if it’s not taken seriously… the obvious answer is those making money in the carbon based energy business, and big business in general. Do “environmentalists” truly benefit substantially if it is taken seriously? Hardly, give me a break… ALWAYS follow the money, the big money, not the small money. That is the answer to MOST questions like the one above. Get a clue people. Sites like these are payed for the people who are afraid to change and lose money, and power. Wake up America!

  8. Dan McGrath May 16, 2008 at 9:35 am #

    First off, this site is funded by local grassroots activists. Our financial interest in global warming is the same as everyone’s. If Gore gets his way, we’ll all be cast into mediocrity or even poverty while the rich elitist class (like Gore) who can afford $10 a gallon for gas, or a 200% boost in their electric bill, keep living the lifestyle they enjoy. Only it’ll be even better because all of us peasants won’t be able to occasionally spoil their enjoyment of the finer things by showing up on a flight, on their highways, or a nice club, etc every once in a while ourselves.

    Companies like GE benefit from the hysteria. Forcing us to buy a product hardly anyone wanted to buy by using force of law to eliminate their less expensive competition is a pretty good example. $5.00 lightbulbs, or 49 cent lightbulbs? Nevermind the mercury. It’s good for you now.

    Cash-hungry governments benefit, because it’s a new mandate to tax, and tax a bunch!

    Scientists benefit from spreading panic. More money gets thrown at them. Climatology is a booming business all the sudden.

    Gore is a founder and major owner in a carbon-trading scam – I mean company. He’ll sell you an indulgance so you can keep on pushing carbon dioxide into the air – as long as you pay the godfather.

    You are right. Follow the money, but you have to actually follow it, not just invent stuff in your head.

  9. Mike Carlson May 17, 2008 at 11:40 pm #

    You’re right Dan, inventing stuff in your head is not good. I never said there aren’t misguided or self-interests on both sides of this issue, or any issue for that matter, of course there are. But to pretend that the people or groups you dislike the most, or is the easiest to point fingers at, is the worst, is extremely self-serving and self-deluding. In other words, if Al Gore was so gosh-darned powerful and cunning he’d be serving out the last year of his Presidency, not the current oil-based pResident. I don’t agree with the carbon sharing concept any more than you apparenlty do, but for crying out loud is Al Gore really one of the biggest enemies you can identify re: this issue? Talk about inventing stuff… You seem like a bright guy, why don’t you work towards something more than demonizing the second tier elite. Try taking on the first tier, or even trying to start shedding some light on their dark superiors.

  10. Dan Korzenowski May 18, 2008 at 4:49 pm #

    Gee Dan you are so cool and convincing. All those sheiks and Arab countries must be our real friends, cuz they aren’t really all that rich, are they? Gore is richer than all of them combined, I just know it! Feel it in my gut ya know? Dan’s right, he real money is in all those liberal pockets, everyone knows that. All those big corporations like Exxon, etc. need a helping hand cuz their American, or Arab, and it’s practically the same thing. I think I’ll take my money out of Exxon and put into the climatology business cuz Dan knows best. I can’t wait to be rich like all the liberals!

  11. Jimberg98 May 19, 2008 at 9:15 am #

    There’s money to be had on both sides. I don’t care if someone gets rich either way. I do care, however, if someone is fabricating a problem to extract money from me via government mandate.

    Hurriedly destroying our economy before all the facts are in is hardly the way to go. Look at the results of rushing to push ethanol. Even if the globe is warming, I still don’t believe that it’s a problem for mankind. Warmth is beneficial for humanity.

  12. Dan McGrath May 19, 2008 at 11:55 am #

    Whether somebody is rich or not isn’t a prerequisite for friendship. How they got rich might be something to consider though, as well as how they use their wealth.

  13. Dan Korzenowksi May 19, 2008 at 12:12 pm #

    To believe that certain agencies and experts are out to “destroy” the economy by doing their jobs is simply ludicrous, and a result of long-term and constant right-wing propaganda. Just really think about this “problem”, I mean REALLY think about it objectively. If you can do this, which a lot of people obviously cannot do, you will begin to see reality in a more logical and rational manner. And of course there’s the concept of – If you destroy the environment, there will be no economy. Or the ecomony that there is won’t be worth living or working for. Can’t you see that? Why not? What is so wrong about being conerned for this small and beautiful planet that we steward only temporarily for all future generations?

  14. Jimberg98 May 19, 2008 at 4:23 pm #

    How long have we seriously been monitoring global temperature? A handful of decades? Since when is a trend of 40 or even 100 years important in an ecosystem that is billions of years old? Some scientists claim that now is the warmest it’s been in a 1000 years. Really? Since we don’t have an instrumental record going back 1000 years, how can they make that claim? They guessed with proxy data where the margin of error is well within the change monitored by instruments.

    Even the instruments are in question because of how they’re setup. Is a thermometer setup in 1905 to tell farmers how cold or warm it gets comparable to the instruments of today? Even the instruments of today are positioned too close to some heat reflecting objects. High altitude balloons and satellites are probably the best hope for accurate monitoring of atmospheric temperature but even then there have been errors that required “correction”.

    Now toss in the Vostok ice core data; more proxy data with a greater margin of error, not to mention that some of the samples are many millennia apart. I mention this since some global warming science sites show instrument data superimposed over the ice core data. How many 100 year warming periods greater than the current one could be buried in the missing samples? It seems reasonable to me that some of this data may not exist since the ice was melting or sublimating because of high temperatures at the poles.

    Our view of historical climate data is sketchy at best and then they use this questionable information to derive computer models to predict future climate. Models that did not predict the temperature flat-line since 2000, nor did the models predict the 10-20 years of cooler climate that scientists are currently predicting will occur.

    I don’t need to attack the motives of any scientists to see that there are a lot of holes in their research. Science is about gathering all the facts and not just gathering enough facts to support your theories. Now, based on this flimsy evidence, we need to completely overhaul our way of life? I think not. That would be foolhardy.

    This is my objective look at the problem. How can saying that global warming will destroy our environment if we don’t act now is objective? If it is happening, it may change our environment some, hurting some while helping many others. We’re human beings. It’s easier for us to adapt slowly than it is to just stop everything and move in a totally new direction. A new direction that will be costly for our economy. The proposed ideas to fix the problem will do nothing, by the way, so the ROI will be nil. Bush’s “do nothing approach” has done more than the European, environmental fascism approach.

  15. Dan Korzenowksi May 20, 2008 at 7:07 am #

    Nobody is asking anyone to “overhaul” their way of life. To keep harpingon that is overly-dramatic at best and disingenuous. Besides, what constitutes true intelligence is the ability to change and adapt. People like the above have a very difficult time with that concept for some reason. It seems immature to me (even a 50 year old can act immaturely). Green technology could provide many benefits not the least of which would be added industry in this country which we very desperately need. Even many industries are discovering significant savings and a better bottom line when they conseve water, energy, reduce waste etc. Humans are hard-wired to resist change, but to fight it no matter what evidence is presented is quite silly. Just ask the next Neanderthal you run into…

  16. Davion L. May 20, 2008 at 9:51 am #

    As Mike Whitney reported for Information Clearing House at the end of October in 2006 — a day before Halloween — the US was then engineering the drop in the dollar to “improve competitiveness” — i.e. subsidize US exports in a flawed attempt to reduce the growing balance of trade gap. Was it a trick or treat? Read on.

    The result was summed up in his headline: “The U.S. Dollar is kaput. Confidence in the currency is eroding by the day.”
    Whitney saw then what our media has still yet to report or understand.
    “The financial crisis that we now face was created by design. It is intended to destroy the labor movement, crush the middle class, quash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, reduce our foreign debt by 50 or 60%, force a restructuring of America’s debt, privatize all public assets and resources, and create a new regime of austerity measures which will divert more wealth to the banking and corporate establishment.”

    This was months before the sub-prime meltdown in August 2007, or the more recent hike in food prices and oil prices. Their plan, blessed by business and the banks, was implemented step by step. The consequence was intended.

    Now let’s fast-forward to the present, well after this widely foreseen crisis erupted. As oil prices climb, the public is angry. And who do they mostly blame — the oil companies and the oil-producing states, of course. They have no clue that this crisis was the consequence of decisions made by the Bush Administration to devalue the dollar with its “crisis manager” Jim Wilkinson playing a central role.

    Political writer Jerry Policoff questioned the “politicized polls” on who is responsible for the oil hikes. He noted that most people and pollsters don’t realize that the fall of the dollar precipitated all of this. When asked if he thought this squeeze had been orchestrated…

    His response:
    “I don’t think there is any doubt about that, and the Saudis said as much when Bush asked them to rev up production to bring down the price. Their reaction was pretty much that the U.S. should stop undermining the value of its own dollar before asking other countries to take a financial hit on oil.”

    And sure enough, once again, as AP reported recently, President Bush “failed to win the help he sought from Saudi Arabia to relieve skyrocketing American gas prices.” The President’s own bombast was also faulted for driving oil prices higher, as Bill Scheer noted, “Bush’s saber-rattling with Iran raises concerns of war and more disruption of oil supplies, which more than anything right now prompts speculators to raise prices.” And you can also predict that the mainstream press will be looking the other way, more than happy to attack any critics suspected of telling the truth.

    When we attacked Iraq, oil was at $29 a barrel and the great fear was that once we attacked it, the tremendous increase in supplies from Iraq would drive the price of oil down to even lower levels, causing the oil rich nations (and corporations) to lose billions of dollars.

    Six years later the price is at $127 a barrel with Iraq producing no more today than it did then and much of it being diverted by smugglers and corrupt leaders.

    If we don’t do something quick, life as we know it, will be coming to an abrupt halt.

    A “perfect storm” is brewing in America: the price of gas, the cost of health care insurance and the cost of health care, the number of uninsured Americans, the cost of a college education, the cost of food, the number of jobs that have moved overseas, the influx of millions of illegal immigrants, the number of legal immigrants being insourced to take jobs in place of American citizens, the collapse of our educational system, the cost of home heating fuel————-it’s all coming together at once.

    And because you should know, here is what the people who don’t believe in left-wing progressive ideas are saying: “Environmentalism is nothing less than the global elitists’ replacement ideology for communism/socialism. With communism largely discredited today – after all, 100-150 million people died at the hands of communist “visionaries” during the last century – elitists who desire to rule other people’s lives have gravitated to an even more powerful ideology, (namely the fear about Global Warming). More powerful because it seems to trump all other considerations, as it claims the very survival of life on earth is dependent on implementing its agenda.”

    Is this not a master-stroke of status quo manipulation? It’s brilliant! And that is just one example of what reality-based progressive thinkers are up against. The real fascists have learned to preempt scrutiny by calling all others as fascists, eg. Enviro-facists, liberal-fascists, femi-nazis, etc. This is not so new or especially brilliant. It is old but effective Machiavellian tactics.

  17. Jimberg98 May 20, 2008 at 1:22 pm #

    The global warming alarmists do their best to shutdown ideas that are in opposition to their own. This is evident in Al Gore’s declaration that the debate is over. The science is in, he says. Scientists who disagree with the theory are denied research grants. This is fascism. No one from the skeptic side is trying to shut anyone up. They just want free and open debates on the subject. When has Al Gore allowed someone to debate him?

    The environmentalist movement is similar to communism because it exploits an idea that we can all get behind to implement plans where only a few will profit. There are those on the conservative side that do the same thing. We citizens have to keep a watchful eye on both.

    I listed a bunch of flaws I believe exist in the “science” of global warming and all I get back is being called immature, stupid, and a Neanderthal. This, by the way, is why conservatives call liberals elitists.

    Oh, and the definition of “mature” at webster.com is “based on slow careful consideration”. The act-now-before-we’re-all-dead responses from some are hardly mature.

    There’s nothing at all wrong with development of green technologies. I just oppose mandates that will require us to switch to green technologies before they’re ready for prime time. As fuel prices go up, the market will drive consumers to these green technologies if they are indeed worthwhile technologies. I also oppose being told that a technology is green when it really isn’t.

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