By Tim Connolly
November 18, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama delivered a videotaped message this morning to a climate change summit convened by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and declared that, "Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear."
Really?
With our economy on the brink, our dollar weak and getting weaker, with the violence on our Southern Borders out of control and worsening, with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our free markets and civil liberties under fire. How does Climate Change make the top of the list?
Oh, right. The science is "settled" and we're all going to die if we don't act now.
At least that is what we are being told, over and over again by President Elect Obama and the leaders of the "green" movement.
But, is it true?
Considering the enormously unprecedented financial commitments being pushed by the Alarmist crowd and promised by our newly elected leaders in Washington, I think that that question demands an answer BEFORE we "act". Don't you?
I mean, obviously there are changes happening in our environment. But, do we really know why its happening or what is causing the changes?
Do we really fully know what, if anything, we can do about it?
Why is the soon-to-be 'leader of the free world' jumping the gun, declaring the science "beyond dispute" when science is NEVER "beyond dispute". Through-out history the scientific community has proven itself to be at best an imperfect practice that is constantly changing and altering its opinion based on new information?
I give you, Exhibit A:
During the 1970's, the scientific community, as well as the international media, frantically warned of the impending doom over the 'global Cooling' trend and the likelihood of another Ice Age. Many in the scientific community urged Congress to act quickly to avoid disaster with proposed solutions such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot, or diverting the arctic rivers. (Both of which would have proven to be catastrophic.)
In 1975, an article printed in Newsweek concerning the Cooling "crisis" stated:
Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.
Sound Familiar?
Before I go any further let me make myself clear. I am not, in any way, saying that we should ignore scientific discovery, nor that we should negate the information those discoveries bring us. On the contrary. I am merely pointing out the painfully obvious truth that "Scientific fact" is subject to human error and evolution.
This is why I believe that in order to find the most accurate Scientific conclusions, we must employ a patient observation of ALL points of fact.
Every legitimate, factually based opinion must be considered and taken into account, and fear must NOT be a factor when forming a solution. History demonstrates this as well.
Unfortunately, this has not been the formula applied to form the current "consensus" concerning Climate Change.
In our current politically charged and agenda driven public arena's, anyone who challenges the mainstream media and popular culture are subjected to some of the most venomous insults and character assassinations. This form of retribution is nowhere more severe than for those who take issue with popular views about global warming among the consensus crowd. Many reputable scientists and professionals have been bullied, harassed, and intimidated into submission or even black-listed into exile for "getting out of line".
Thankfully however, some are willing to weather the storm of vicious attacks to speak out concerning the many discrepancies, missing pieces, and flat out falsehoods in the "consensus" data.
One such brave soul is Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. In an interview for ABC National Radio, Marohasy was asked, "Is the earth still warming?"
She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years." Pointing out that those facts are not even in controversy, she went on to say, 
"The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."
I know, I know. She is just one person against the entire Scientific community, right?
Wrong.
In March of this year more than 500 leading scientists, economists, and other experts on global warming gathered in New York for the International Conference on Climate Change. A conference devoted to finding "answers for the questions overlooked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change".
The 2008 conference featured presentations by more than 100 prominent scientists and economists from the U.S. and around the world, including Dr. Robert Balling (Arizona State University), Dr. Stanley Goldenberg (NOAA), Dr. William Gray (Colorado State University), Dr. Yuri Izrael (IPCC), Dr. Patrick Michaels (University of Virginia), Dr. Paul Reiter (Institut Pasteur, Paris), Dr. S. Fred Singer (Science and Environmental Policy Project), Dr. Willie Soon (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and Dr. Roy Spencer (NASA).
During the opening remarks of the conference, Joseph L. Bast, President of the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based industry-funded think tank, said,
"We’re asking questions such as: how reliable are the data used to document the recent warming trend?
How much of the modern warming is natural, and how much is likely the result of human activities?"
"How reliable" he continued, "are the computer models used to forecast future climate conditions? And is reducing emissions the best or only response to possible climate change?
Obviously, these are important questions. Yet the IPCC pays little attention to them or hides the large amount of doubt and uncertainty surrounding them."
Are the scientists and economists who ask these questions just a fringe group, outside the scientific mainstream?
Not quite.
A 2003 survey of 530 climate scientists in 27 countries, conducted by Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch at the GKSS Institute of Coastal Research in Germany, found that
82% said global warming is happening, but only 56% said it’s mostly the result of human causes, and only 35% said models can accurately predict future climate conditions. Of those surveyed, only 27 percent believed “the current state of scientific knowledge is able to provide reasonable predictions of climate variability on time scales of 100 years.”
That’s a long ways from “consensus.”
More damning still is that there isn’t even consensus among the IPCC.
While it is true that there are about 2,500 scientists in the IPCC as a whole, only about 600 of those scientists are part of Working Group I (WG I), the sub-committee that actually comments on the causes and severity of climate change. Of those 600, only 62 reviewed and commented on the critical chapter that attributes climate change to so-called “greenhouse gases” generated by human activity. Norrowing it down even further, 55 of those 62 had a vested interest (by organizational or research ties) in producing the “right” answer.
A few of the scientists originally listed on the IPCC report went as far as having their name removed after reading the final report and finding it to be misleading.
Global warming is often presented as a liberal-conservative issue. It’s not. It’s a science vs. propaganda issue and, despite what a bunch of radicals with an agenda preach, the real scientists have real doubts that mankind has much to do with the changes in climate at all.
Most skeptics do not dismiss greenhouse gases as a possible cause of global warming outright. Nor should they. But their objective approach is a far cry from the sheer panic one finds in the IPCC report's Summary for Policymakers that Al Gore and his disciples quote so frequently. There is a big difference between continued attention to a theory, and a mad rush to alter the world’s energy supply before we are swept away by a wall of water or devoured by homeless polar bears.
Listen, I am an advocate for clean air, clean water, and protecting this beautiful planet that we've been given. I strongly support conservation and developing clean and efficient forms of renewable energy. But the transitions must be thoughtfully planned, carefully implemented, and our motivations must in the right place.
If we carelessly rush to pass massive new legislation that would impose major financial burdens to this already weakened economy by throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at a problem we know very little about, it would be more than fool-hearty. It would reek of ulterior motives.
With that said, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the corporations and individuals who are pushing the hardest for the Kyoto protocol, Cap and Trade (which turns Carbon, a naturally occurring gas, into a commodity to be capped, bought and sold), and immediate reduction in fossil fuels among other proposed "solutions", those same folks stand to profit the most from the transitions.
A perfect example of this is Mr. Climate Change himself, Al Gore. Though he has never had to prove one word of the dooms day rhetoric he espouses (most of which has been debunked by ACTUAL scientists as false or misleading), Al Gore has made over $100 million dollars since the 2006 release of his "documentary", 'An Inconvenient Truth'. This a man who is a lawyer, a business man, and a Politician (I didn't see Scientist or Meteorologist in there, did you?) leading the charge for global warming alarmism, yet he stands to potentially make billions through an ownership stake in Generation Investment Management, a corporation he co-founded in 2004. GIM was specifically established to take financial advantage of new technologies and solutions related to combating Global Warming.
Can an individual who stands to make millions from Global Warming really be trusted as an honest broker on that topic? Talk about giving the fox the keys to the hen, make that penthouse.
Roger Pielke Jr., an associate professor of environmental studies and the former director of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, commented concerning Mr. Gore: "As I have said on many occasions, I am neither surprised nor too concerned that a politician would stretch the facts to advance his political agenda. What concerns me is that many scientists have been complicit in advancing such mischaracterizations and remain selectively mute when they are made. In this manner, a large portion of the mainstream climate science community has taken on the unfortunate characteristics of politicians like Mr. Gore, deciding to uphold scientific standards only when politically convenient. This is one way how science becomes pathologically politicized."
So when I hear my newly elected President, Barack Obama, declare that "the science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear." When he confidently warns that, "Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season." When he arrogantly proclaims that, "Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious." I can't help but wonder.
Who is on the fringe? The skeptics or the Alarmists?
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