Global Warming Facts

Let's begin with the statement that the planet has warmed a small amount. Scientists and other commentators that wish to debate global warming are not denying this point. Where the disagreement is what is about the following points:

1. What is the cause of global warming? Is is the result of human generated greenhouse gases, the result of natural planetary cycles, or the result of some of both?
2. To what degree will the earth continue to warm and how fast?
3. What is the best response making sure that the "cure" actually makes a difference and does not cause other problems that are worse?

Several prominent scientists and respected university professors have recently offered to debate Al Gore regarding his claims on global warming. Gore refuses to engage in these debates. Assuming Al Gore is reasonably intelligent he must know that the wildly exaggerated claims and many falsehoods featured in An Inconvenient Truth will not stand up to a legitimate, factual debate.

It is interesting that in the 1960’s and early 1970’s there were a rash of documentaries about the coming ice age. The temperatures had been cooling and there was a lot of concern in the scientific community that we were at risk of plunging temperatures and encroaching glaciers.

If the current slight global warming is caused by human activity then is massive economic intervention worth the devastating cost on both the developed and developing countries? If we the proposals that have been put forth they would have the effect of plunging the developed countries into a broad and long lived global recession. The same proposals would be catastrophic for developing countries, denying them the ability to raise their countries out of abject poverty and provide basic services such as electricity. Africa would be the hardest hit.

So we better be darn sure that the cure is not worse than the disease – and if in fact the “cure” would actually do what is intended. The developers of the Kyoto accord grudgingly admit that even if all the countries in the world met its targets for greenhouse emissions the reduction in temperature would not be measurable. So instead of accomplishing anything meaningful Kyoto is a monument to bureaucratic hubris.

But the economic impact is very easy to measure. If would reduce the GDP of the U.S. and the other developed countries by an enormous amount. It would prohibit developing countries to build their economies and have simple necessities such as electricity.

Now if you believe Al Gore that the oceans are going to rise 20 feet by 2050 and that Florida will be completely underwater and that the polar bears will be extinct then by all means we should pull out all the stops. Based on what I’ve read I don’t believe that. Even the U.N. report on global warming which was more political than scientific the ocean level rises by inches, not feet.

Scientists that have really made a career of studying this topic, and have no connection to oil company funded research, say that Al Gore’s central premise is backwards. Levels of carbon dioxide are a lagging indicator of temperature change and not a leading indicator.

I have read widely on this subject. The following are statements that to my knowledge are not in dispute by any scientists.

• The earth goes through long cycles of warming and cooling that are not caused by human activity.
• The hottest year in the 20th century was in the 1930's.
• The earth had a long period of temperatures much higher than they are today for many hundreds of years during the middle ages that was not caused by human activity. This period of warmth during the middle ages permitted crops to be growth a more northern latitudes than had ever been possible before. It also made it practical for the Vikings to establish permanent settlements on Greenland. This warm period could not have been caused by humans.
• Subsequent to this very warm period there was subsequent period of cooling that resulted in a mini-ice age. The Thames regularly froze over and that London held an annual festival out on the ice. Crops in the northern latitudes failed resulting in economic displacement and starvation.
• The earth had an even longer period of the much higher temperatures for several thousand years during the early part of human existence – the highest temperatures on the planet since the onset of modern humans. These warmest temperatures in human history did not cause the polar bears to go extinct.
• Carbon dioxide as a percentage of the atmosphere is a tiny percentage that makes it impossible to have the warming effect ascribed to it by some. Water vapor is the largest “greenhouse gas” that retains heat and dwarfs all others by order and orders and orders of magnitude. Water vapor is not produced in meaningful percentages by humans. Most of the computer models that predict dire consequences assume a constant rate of growth in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is more than double the documented rate.
• The warming effect of carbon dioxide as it increases in the atmosphere is not linear. If we double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from current levels it will increase the temperature about 0.5 C. But to raise the temperature another 0.05 C would take a quadrupling of the CO2 in the atmosphere.