Climate plan takes heat

Even as the lower 48 remain gripped by arctic blasts that have produced record-shattering low temperatures, the Obama administration appears ready to push forward with its plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions by way of a "cap and trade" system (according to the Chicago Tribune.)

As the Tribune describes it, "the government would set limits on carbon emissions by power plants and other installations but allow those that emit more to buy or trade permits with companies that emit less than the prescribed limit." The hope of such regulation is to "encourage companies and other emitters to cut back, thus reducing a principle cause of global warming." For her part, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) went on to say, "[i]f we don't put a price on carbon, we'll never get... clean energy sources online."

Of course, the easiest way for any company to comply with any new CO2 emissions standards - without incurring the cost of buying emissions permits or carbon credits - would be to reduce production. This would be bad under any circumstances, as it would doubtless reduce the nation's GDP. To push forward with such a plan in the midst of two recessions (one economic and one climatological) is unspeakably egregious. To do so with the expectation that an already anorexic economy will somehow provide for capital investments in wind, solar and biofuel technologies takes a special kind of obtuseness.

So even as scientists grapple with how to explain the fact that ocean temperatures have not risen since 2003, President Obama and his minions continue to saddle the country with policies that can only serve to hamper economic growth. This comes from the bunch that said that they would free the America from the stranglehold of rigid ideology. It seems the only thing that they will relieve us of is our wealth.

Four long years!

What liberals have learned from terrorists (and vice versa)

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."

This line from Barry Goldwater's speech to the 1964 Republican Convention has since lent itself to frequent (mis)quotation, as the idea that motivated Goldwater's comment can easily be bastardized - even as the remark itself has often been taken out of context. Over time, people of every political stripe have justified extreme behaviors by way of an overarching pursuit of a greater good.

For whatever reason, when we thought of domestic extremism, we were given to imagine pro-life activists protesting (or worse) outside of abortion clinics, the Oklahoma City bombing or the religiously demented hoisting "God Hates Fags" signs at military funerals.

At least until last week.

Our vision of home-grown extremism must now include that directed against targets of liberal umbrage. In the wake of the bombing of the Armed Forces Recruiting Station in New York's Times Square, along with the recent firebombing of five luxury model homes north of Seattle, we have had to rethink what militant zealotry looks like.

The New York Times reports that the Times Square attack may be similar to two other bombings, one on the British Consulate in 2005 and the other at the Mexican Consulate in 2007. Whatever conclusion investigators are able to draw on that score, I would submit that the underlying intent of this attack - if not the means - was of a piece with attacks perpetrated by the Leftist-affiliated Earth Liberation Front (ELF)/Animal Liberation Front (ALF), Earth First!, Primate Freedom Project, Justice Department and the Revolutionary Cells Animal Liberation Brigade: namely, to utilize violence to advance a radical liberal agenda.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), ELF/ALF have been responsible for more than 600 criminal acts since 1996, with their activities reaching at least as far back as 1984. (To be sure, the lineage of these groups extends to the 17 year reign of terror visited by Left-wing Luddite Theodore Kaczynski and further yet to the Black Liberation Army and the SDS/Weathermen.) The SPLC also indicates that - contrary to their previous eschewal of violence against humans - radical eco-terror groups have begun targeting people that they deem guilty of sufficiently atrocious offenses.

By way of the Left's unchallenged control over the institutions of opinion, liberals have been able to cow those with dissenting viewpoints into embarrassed silence. And those who would still deviate from the progressive memes are made subject to either ridicule, anathema or increasingly, terroristic violence. The Left's monopoly of viewpoint has facilitated a near monopoly of legitimized (read: exculpated) violence, such violence mitigated in the eyes of liberals by the perpetrators' stated goal of equality. (That liberals are forgiving of their own is evidenced by the fact that both Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers live free from opprobrium for their acts as members of the Weather Underground; to the eternal embarrassment of all Chicagoans, both Dohrn and Ayers are professors at Northwestern and the University of Illinois at Chicago respectively.)

Given that liberals have long embraced a "radical chic" persona that legitimized the barbarity of murderous despots (as long as they were anti-American), it does not surprise that they have felt free to embrace acts of violence as a means to their ends. Much like our Islamist enemies, the Left has come to denigrate individual freedom as too dangerous to be entrusted to individuals, progressives holding equality more to be prized than freedom. In their pursuit of a faux equality - be it of races, genders, sexual orientations, economic classes or species - liberals forswear disparity of outcome resulting from the diversity engendered by liberty (liberty of course being distinct from equality, with both often at cross-purposes, each existing at the peril of the other.)

And while liberals and Islamists employ variant definitions of "freedom" (with Islam defining freedom as the opportunity to be subject to the will of Allah), the logical ends of liberalism and Islamism are remarkably similar, with both devolving into a state of unabated tyranny. Both Islamism and liberalism are radicalized by the idea of unfettered self-determination. The former confronts freedom with an all-encompassing religious orthodoxy, while the latter simply creates a bureaucratic orthodoxy to stifle personal sovereignty. Neither is above using violence as a means to establish their peculiar dogmas.

Much like Islamists, liberals use both our rule of law - and the core thereof, our inherent decency - to their devious advantage. Because the developed West holds fast to individual legal protections (it does not escape notice that eco-terror in particular is almost non-existent in places such as Cuba, China, North Korea, Iran, etc.), Left-wing terror is a fairly consequence-free endeavor.
But beyond utilizing specific provisions of occidental jurisprudence, terrorists of both sorts are not above using the judicial system itself to facilitate a sort of litigation in terrorem.

Lawsuits against telecommunication companies over their assistance with the NSA wiretapping program, along with legal action against the Bush administration on behalf of Guantanamo Bay detainees and climate change zealots have had a chilling effect on activities that might otherwise be seen as part of the benign course of normal events. This too serves the ends of those who fear the freedom of the individual more than the dictatorship of doctrine.

To Rehabilitate the Culture(s) - Although it is hardly a preoccupation singular to blacks, it can be said with little fear of contradiction that dogfighting has embedded itself into the secret life of the black community. If the allegations contained in the indictment against Atlanta Falcons' quarterback Michael Vick to be believed, his actions are reflective of attitudes that prevailed in America's inner cities during the 1980s, as pit bulls were often used as guard dogs for drug dealers and gang-bangers during that period. Vick's behavior is remarkably consistent with the lyrical metaphors and imagery conjured up by rappers as diverse as Snoop Dogg, Raekwon (see sample lyrics here) and DMX (who was arrested - perhaps not coincidentally - for animal cruelty and possession of drug paraphernalia after police found 13 pit bulls and six used crack pipes in his home in 1999) among others.

It is not entirely surprising that dogfighting would become a source of entertainment for blacks in the underclass, or more specifically, blacks with underclass cultural mores (even if they have upper-class bank accounts), as the "sport" has prevailed among the lower and middle classes of much of the Western world since the 12th Century. Historically, it was most prevalent in the United Kingdom, and was made popular in the United States with the importation of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier in the early 1800s. Doubtless, African slaves would have had at least some exposure to dogfights in the agrarian South. Indeed, some of what we are observing presently may yet be another manifestation of what Dr. Thomas Sowell describes as the behavior of "black rednecks", or African Americans whose exposure to the culture of Southern whites during and after slavery has remained a significant impediment (as discussed elsewhere.)

As we might expect, animal rights groups have been justly indignant over the Vick situation. The American Humane Association issued a press release calling on the NFL to "educate its players and staff that animal fighting is an illegal activity and that by gaining knowledge on the subject, they will be able to aid in preventing animal fighting in their own communities." Similarly, Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), said that as of Vick's indictment, "the NFL should not hesitate to suspend him." For his part, HSUS' John Goodwin commented "[t]here is a definite subculture of dogfighting within professional sports," adding "I think you've just seen the tip of the iceberg." (ESPN.com readers were reminded of a similar situation involving former Portland Trail Blazers player Qyntel Woods' being charged for fighting his pit bull in 2004.)

It is surely beyond debate that animal cruelty is sick and wrong, and what Michael Vick allegedly did vis-a-vis the pit bulls found on his Virginia farms is reprehensible - as is the culture that shaped and informed his decision to engage in such activity. But there is another culture in need of repair; the eye-popping irony is that more than a few of those who are rightly troubled by the allegations against Vick would be willing to stand idly by were these same sorts of inhumanities committed against other humans. (See intra-bellum Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan....) The same persons and organizations such as PETA who wish to "responsibly and proactively fight the war against poverty and injustice and against ignorance and cruelty" would leap out of their skins in rapture were America to unilaterally withdraw from Mesopotamia, never minding the barbarism that all informed observers agree would occur following our departure.

In as much as PETA's Ingrid Newkirk and others aver that "a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy," the animal activist Left diminishes society's ability to make moral distinctions between man and animals. And even as cruelty to animals is an indicator of a person's propensity towards future cruelty to humans, an equalist mindset that equates the value of human life and that of animals increases the likelihood of violence against the former in defense of the later, thereby diminishing the value of both.

PETA has even gone so far as to fund violence against its enemies. In 1995, Americans for Medical Progress obtained tax records proving that PETA gave $3,500 to the Rodney Coronado Support Committee, an [Animal Liberation Front] offshoot that was named after a member who was convicted of firebombing a research facility at Michigan State University. Comparing the violent ALF to the Underground Railroad, PETA President Newkirk openly admitted to contributing to the defense funds of eco-terrorists.

Destructive as this behavior and rhetoric is, even more destructive is the impact their worldview has on society. Rather than elevating trees and animals to a place of sanctity, they have helped devalue human life to a worth no greater than that of the average lab rat. The brutality this breeds ensures that we will, in one way or another, end up resembling the animal kingdom: As poll after poll has shown, most animal rights activists take pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia stances — advocating nothing less than the killing off of the weakest members of the herd.

To be sure, if humans are not prepared to defend the lives of both animals and humans, while placing the appropriate value on each, we will lack the moral fortitude to confront existential challenges to either. Without the proper cultural foundations, all that we take for granted is at risk from without, and increasingly from within.

Environ-mentally Disturbed - The hype and hysteria emanating from the ranks of global warming missionaries are beginning to reach a fevered pitch, even as the "science" behind anthropogenic climate change begins to unravel. Beyond the "Live Earth" debacle, climate change proselytizers are stepping up their efforts to put the issue front and center on the agendas of politicians, educators, businesspeople and of course the general public. But despite all of their efforts, most Americans have a low level of concern vis-a-vis global warming. So to, it is a fact that over 50 percent of the British public believes that global warming fears are overstated.

As discussed elsewhere, we are not surprised that the global warming message hardly resonates with the average person, either here or overseas. When considered against global economic concerns, terrorism, the specter of HIV/AIDS and unstable dictatorships (as well as the old standby bete noires of war and famine), climate change hardly merits a yawn. The same apathy seen among the general population is mirrored in the results of the first and second Copenhagen Consensus meetings, where economists and diplomats respectively, gathered to determine how best to expend the world's finite resources to do the most good first. In both meetings, the assembled ranked "initiatives on communicable diseases, sanitation and water, malnutrition, and education" far ahead of dealing with global warming.

It is just as well, given that the last chapter on man's role in rising atmospheric temperatures may not be as settled as Al Gore and others might aver. Given what we know from emerging climate science, increases in solar activity may well prove to be more important than factors such as concentrations of either CO2, water vapor or methane in regards to global warming, although the data seems to conflict more that coalesce. (To be sure, much has been written in regards to the idea that solar irradiance may not be in and of itself a direct factor in the rise in atmospheric temperatures seen in the last 50 years.)

In any event, whatever revelations science may reveal in the future, scientists are presently calling into question some of the models by which warming predictions are derived. In a recent issue of Science, Richard Kerr described the nature of the critiques, all of which derive from an online article entitled "Quantifying climate change - too rosy a picture?"

Twentieth-century simulations would seem like a straightforward test of climate models. In the run-up to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] climate science report released last February,... 14 groups ran their models under 20th-century conditions of rising greenhouse gases. As a group, the models did rather well. [See figure above.] A narrow range of simulated warmings (purple band) falls right on the actual warming (black line) and distinctly above simulations run under conditions free of human influence (blue band).

But the group of three atmospheric scientists - [University of Seattle scientist Robert] Charlson; Stephen Schwartz of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York; and Henning Rodhe of Stockholm University, Sweden--says the close match between models and the actual warming is deceptive. The match "conveys a lot more confidence [in the models] than can be supported in actuality," says Schwartz.

And when one looks at Schwartz, et al., it appears to be the opinion of the authors that, "a variety of forcings and different representations of these forcings were used in simulations with the different models. As the use of such an ensemble of opportunity led to a narrowing of uncertainty rather than to the expected increase, it would seem that the forcings used in the models did not span the full range of the uncertainty" (not that we should accuse the IPCC of fudging the numbers.) The article goes on to point out why this disparity should matter to the scientific community.

Does resolving this inconsistency matter? Yes, even if only to give a more accurate picture of the range of sensitivities of current models. As it stands, the narrow range of modeled temperatures gives a false sense of the certainty that has been achieved. A much more realistic assessment of present understanding would be gained by testing the models over the full range of forcings. (Emphasis added.)

So we are left to conclude what has been evident all along: namely, that the theory of man-made global warming is only as sound as the models that are used and the data and assumptions that undergird them. As discussed elsewhere, the sheer number of models (14 and counting) "suggests that there are differences in the perception of even the potential impact" of CO2 on the climate. Not that any of this matters much, as the acolytes in the church of global warming have foreclosed any possibility of variance from their infallible authority. Their job is to persuade by appeals to emotion as opposed to reason. Indeed, they have declared as much that scientific uncertainty is their ally, and the objective scientific method their foe.

Credible Sources - Well the jury is in. Woodenfest (as the Live Earth concerts were described elsewhere) were only slightly more popular than the Iraq War, and far less substantial in their aims. We know for sure that attendance was less than stellar in Rio de Janeiro, and there were more than a few empty seats at some of the other venues as a well, as reported by the LA Times.

Exactly how often can you stage a once-in-a-lifetime event? That [was] the challenge Saturday for the organizers of Live Earth, the latest in a long line of huge concerts-for-a-cause. This time the issue is global warming — which is fitting considering the event isn't generating quite as much heat as hoped.

That's despite all-star lineups with such A-list rock, pop and hip-hop acts as Madonna, the Police, Justin Timberlake, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kanye West and more than 100 others on stages in eight cities around the world, including East Rutherford, N.J.; London; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Sydney.

Yet snags have developed. The Johannesburg concert has been scaled back after tepid ticket sales, and a show planned for Istanbul was canceled altogether in the face of financial and logistical snags.

This does not surprise, as at best the whole affair was merely a reason to have a concert with A-list performers (although the LA Times quoted Roger Daltrey of The Who as saying "[t]he last thing the planet needs is a rock concert.") A less charitable interpretation of the event would be that it was a grand exercise in psychological onanism, a bloated spectacle of masturbation for the soul. This seems especially the case for the "Goracle," so outsized is his need for validation; he always seems to be saying to the world "I care more than you, therefore I am more special than you."

At worst, the concerts did genuine harm, both to the earth (by way of the massive amount of energy used and waste generated in connection with the concerts) and to the cause of fighting climate change itself. The concerts were roundly panned by no less than Sir Bob Geldof, among others, for having an objective that was unclear at best, as reported by the NY Times.

"Live Earth doesn't have a final goal," he said in May, adding that it would be useful only if it forced politicians and corporations to announce concrete environmental measures.

Arctic Monkeys's drummer, Matt Helders, was also outspoken, saying it would be "a bit patronizing" to think his youthful group could change the world. "Especially when we're using enough power for 10 houses just for lighting, it would be a bit hypocritical," he told Agence France-Presse after a recent concert in Paris.

The Times article went on point out the criticism of "the energy-expending habits of many performers, some of whom, it has been reported, flew their private planes halfway across the world to play in the concerts." (If only the Times would remind us of the energy-expending habits of Mr. Gore.) As mentioned elsewhere, the environmental movement is the most easily dismissed of all movements, entirely because of the rank hypocrisy of its leaders. To imagine that such world-class frequent fliers as Snoop Dogg, Metallica, The Pussycat Dolls and Ludacris would be able to inspire anyone to act in support of the climate is, well, ludicrous.

Now on to more enviro-lunacy. Speaking of the Times, the online version of a recent article in the British daily The Times went on to discuss "Ten predictions about climate change that have come true." Among the prognostications that have supposedly become manifest was that "Australia would start drying out," with a proof source of scientists from the U.K.'s Hadley Centre for Climate Change. The anthropogenic "drying out" of the landscape allegedly seen down under must be of a piece with the type that global warming supporters would contend is contributing to the wildfires seen in the Lake Tahoe area presently. The San Francisco Chronicle certainly seemed to suggest as much with this comment.

The Forest Service's [regional ecologist Hugh] Safford noted that even the climate has come under human influence, as evidenced by global warming and increased forest fires in a dryer, warmer West.

A study being prepared documents what Safford described as a significant increase in Sierra fires during the past 21 years, which clearly goes beyond any naturally occurring cycle.

Of course there are more than a few who would contend that the fires that have been seen in the last few years out West are as much a result of the efforts of the environmentalist movement as anything else. A resident of the area says exactly as much in a video from NBC Nightly News. And it has ever been thus; environmental regulations on forest management have clearly served to jeopardize both forests and the humans living in their vicinity, resulting directly in the damage and loss of life and property from wildfires that we have witnessed in California, Nevada and elsewhere.

To be sure, even if the earth's climate has been getting warmer over the past 50 years - a debatable proposition, as global temperatures have plateaued since the late 1990s (as discussed here and here), we are surely more at risk from liberalism's "solutions" to the problem than we are from any increase in either CO2 or global temperatures themselves. Especially given that the remedies will consist of little more than the solutions the Left proposes for every problem, no matter the type or complexity (as noted by former-Congressman Tom Delay.)

Tell me, has any Democratic politician ever - ever - proposed something innovative, original or even clever to solve the hot environmental issue of the moment? No matter whether it's the ozone, the ocean or anything in between, the response is always the same: more government, more regulation, higher taxes, more spending, less freedom. I don't doubt that liberals care about the environment, for the simple reason that everyone cares about the environment, but their environment agenda is just their labor agenda, their education agenda, their fiscal agenda, their trade agenda, their social agenda and their health care agenda packaged under a different name.

In truth, the real question is not whether Democrats have better ideas regarding climate change than Republicans, but rather why the gloom and doom scenario is taken seriously by so many people of various political persuasions. To be sure, the case for anthropogenic global warming gets more tenuous all the time, especially in light of research presented in American Scientist on melting ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro. While the glaciers on Mt. Kilimanjaro are routinely cited as evidence of man's impact on the earth's climate, it appears that "Kilimanjaro... has gained and lost ice through processes that bear only indirect connections, if any, to recent trends in global climate."

On Black and Green - At no point since 1850 have blacks exceeded 15 percent of the total U.S. population; the African American population reached its high-water mark in 1790 with 19.3 percent of the total. During the 1950s to the 1970s, approximately 10-11 percent of Americans were of African descent, as contrasted with approximately 13 percent presently. Percentages notwithstanding, a small but dedicated cadre of liberation-minded blacks and others struggled to surmount both internally and externally imposed obstacles. Their efforts reached a crescendo during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and continue at present - although in a significantly altered form, as much of the heavy lifting done these days is done by black conservatives (if not by name, then certainly by attitude and behavior.)

Contrast the historic changes in the attitudes and behaviors of Americans vis-a-vis race with those displayed by Americans as it regards the environment. Data from a recent CNN/Opinion Research poll (as seen on PollingReport.com) of 1,028 adults notes that 54 percent of Americans believes that "[g]lobal warming is a fact and is mostly caused by emissions from cars and industrial facilities." Similarly, 33 percent of 1,002 respondents to an ABC News/Washington Post/Stanford University poll said that global warming/climate change "is the single biggest environmental problem the world faces today."

That same poll indicated that 70 percent of Americans believe that "the federal government should do more than it's doing now to try to deal with global warming." (53 percent of respondents said that they trusted the Democrat Congress to do a better job of handling "the environment overall," with 59 percent feeling that Congressional Democrats would handle global warming better.) Gallup data from 1,009 respondents indicates that 66 percent believe that the environmental movement has "definitely" or "probably done more good than harm."

The interesting paradox underlying all of this is the fact that despite Americans being aware of the environment as an issue, they still seem personally unmotivated to act in any meaningful way beyond sorting paper from plastic. To be sure, fossil fuel consumption has remained steady or increased as gasoline has shot above $3.50 a gallon in many areas. And according to data from the Pew Research Center, global warming and the environment seem to rank behind other priorities for both Republicans and Democrats.

Roughly twice as many Democrats as Republicans say that dealing with global warming should be a top priority for the president and Congress this year (48% vs. 23%). However, the issue is a relatively low priority for members of both parties, as well as for independents.

The issue of dealing with global warming rates near the bottom of the priorities list for both Democrats and independents, and is the lowest priority for Republicans. Notably, there is much greater support, across the political spectrum, for the broader goal of protecting the environment. Two-thirds of Democrats (67%) view protecting the environment as a top priority, and it ranks near the middle of their policy priorities list. Many more independents and Republicans also rate protecting the environment an important priority than say the same about dealing with global warming.

Indeed, global warming - and the environment more generally - rank behind things such as terrorism, education and the economy for Republicans and health care costs, the economy and terrorism for Democrats.

So what gives? What accounts for the disconnect between the attitudes and behaviors of Americans as it pertains to the environment? My sense is that most Americans are well aware that many if not most of today's environmental thought leaders are in fact rank hypocrites. This is especially so when environmentalists are considered in contrast to, let's say, civil rights workers who offered their livelihoods and (sadly for far too many) their lives in order to break the back of racial hegemony in this country. To be hectored about all things environmental by the likes of Al Gore, Laurie David, Sheryl Crow or Leo DiCaprio is to know that God sometimes has a wicked sense of humor. Given what we know about Gore's global warming related business interests in particular, listening to his preachments allows me to imagine what it would be like if it was discovered that MLK had slaves working as domestics in his home.

Whatever their specific credentials, environmentalists in general, and global warming advocates more specifically, seem to be the least credible - and therefore the most ignorable - spokespeople for their respective causes. When a rock star tells us that we should only use one square of toilet paper per trip to the loo, we dismiss her as an out of touch rock star. So to when a multimillionaire chairman of an international investment company tells us that we need to reduce our CO2 "footprint" so that he can expand the footprint of his bank account, we ignore his entreaties out of hand. It appears that the days when environmentalists would hoist themselves into trees to make their points are long gone. This crop of environmental all-stars comes across as not much more than, well, hot air.

A warm front over Washington - Whatever one's opinion might be regarding man made climate change, there was definitely a change in climate on Capitol Hill yesterday, as the eminence grise of global warming repaired to meetings with the House's Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Al Gore made the rounds as part of his continued efforts to heighten awareness around the issue of anthropogenic "forcings" impacting global atmospheric temperatures, as reported by the New York Times.

While sparring with Representative Joe L. Barton, a Texas Republican critical of his message, Mr. Gore resorted to a simple metaphor. "The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor." He added, "If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say 'I read a science fiction novel that says it’s not a problem.' You take action."

As the NYT reports, Mr. Gore spoke to both chambers to trumpet a "10-point plan," which among other things called for "a tax on carbon emissions, a ban on incandescent light bulbs and another on new coal-fired plants that cannot be designed to capture carbon." Additionally, he proposed a "national mortgage program to underwrite the use of home energy-saving technologies."

But the fact that Gore averred that global warming was no longer a scientific concern - as if to say that the science regarding climate change is already settled - but rather an issue of morality informs much. In his written testimony to the House, he noted that global warming "is not ultimately about any scientific discussion or political dialogue." Indeed, Mr. Gore has consistently sought to remove science from he discussion entirely as of late, ostensibly replacing the pursuit of discernible fact with appeals to a morality of an indeterminate origin.

Sadly, Mr. Gore can hardly accomplish that meager sort of rhetorical sleight-of-hand; his entreaties seem more derived from a Madison Avenue advertising pitch than from any line of moral reasoning. (The former Vice-President has evidently spent more time than we realized on the West coast, as he has adopted some of their Hollywood hokum as his own, referring at length to the movie "300.") He also summoned up a similarly treacly sentiment in his written statement.

When I think about the climate crisis today, I can imagine a time in the future when our children and grandchildren ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask, "What were you thinking, didn't you care about our future?" Or they will ask, "How did you find the moral courage to cross party lines and solve this crisis?" We must hear their questions now. We must answer them with our actions, not merely with our promises. We must choose a future for which our children and grandchildren will thank us.

Of course, true moral courage dictates that people dedicate resources to activities that can accomplish the most good first. As discussed elsewhere, global warming advocates ignore - at the peril of the world's impoverished - the moral hazard associated with neglecting, for example, the treatment of easily remediable diseases such as malaria in the developing world, in order to address the "threat" posed by climate change (which is still primarily a risk to property, and by extension more of a risk to the developed world.) In his written testimony to the House, Bjorn Lomborg, Ph.D. of the Copenhagen Consensus Center said as much.

Of course, part of us still want to say "let's do it all." And I agree. In an ideal world we would deal with all the world's woes. We should win the war against hunger, end conflicts, stop communicable diseases, provide clean drinking water, step up education and halt climate change. But we don't. And so we have to start face [sic] reality.

When we realize that there are many areas in the world - like HIV, malnutrition, free trade, malaria, clean drinking water etc. - where we can do immense amounts of good, it seems obvious to me that we must focus our attention and our big expenditure there first.

As noted elsewhere, Dr. Lomborg has made exactly this point repeatedly in recent years. The two Copenhagen Consensus meetings in 2004 and 2006 demonstrated that when given a limited amount of financial resources, the "consensus" is that those monies are best spent dealing with less intractable threats to human existence, with global climate change consistently ranking as a low priority.

To be sure, the sturm und drang over global warming represents a monumental selfishness and an outrageous mindset of entitlement. To deny Bangladeshi children polio vaccines so that a millionaire's second home in Key Biscayne is not deluged is an act of ethical derangement, (and based upon the IPCC's latest Summary for Policymakers, such an event is hardly a realistic concern.) So perhaps Mr. Gore is right after all; global warming - and our response thereto - is a sort of moral Rorschach test that reveals much about the morality of individuals on both sides of the issue.

The empty gun - The IPCC's recently issued Climate Change 2007 Summary for Policymakers (SPM) puts me in mind of a bank robber demanding money while waving an unloaded pistol. It is difficult at best to evaluate the statements made in the summary without being able to review the scientific underpinnings to be rendered in later installments of this year's Fourth Assessment Report. It appears, at least to your humble scribe, that this was deliberate. Indeed, the IPCC, along with their counterparts in the establishment media and elsewhere, seem to want international policymakers to react to this report as if everything contained therein was indisputable fact.

Unfortunately, much of what is contained in the SPM is indeed either unsupported by current science or contradicted by points made in the SPM itself. (At the outset, I will credit the IPCC for pointing out some of the shortcomings in their data.) For starters, the report proposes that "[t]he annual CO2 concentration growth-rate was larger during the last 10 years...than it has been since the beginning of continuous direct atmospheric measurements." Now I'm nobody's math major, but I would contend that any 10 year stretch would have a 50 percent chance of having a higher than average CO2 concentration growth-rate than that seen over a longer time-scale; to conclude that this is evidence of longer-term climate change is difficult at best. To it's credit, the SPM does concede that "there is year-to-year variability in growth rates."

The SPM notes that "[t]he average atmospheric water vapor content has increased since at least the 1980s over land and ocean." But because the IPCC does not provide the scientific research supporting this statement, we are not able to conclude whether increased water vapor is a dependent or independent variable as it regards observed changes in global temperature. As noted elsewhere, there is a growing body of research that posits that water vapor is in fact the independent variable, with CO2 being the dependent variable in the climate change equation. (For that matter, it may not be clear whether rising CO2 levels are the cause of climate change or are themselves caused by a warming atmosphere.)

The IPCC does (sort of) confess its ignorance of several factors that may yet mitigate the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere. In its listing of "Relative Forcing Components" the SPM speaks to the IPCC's relative ignorance of the impacts of land use, total airborne aerosols or variances in solar irradiance on climate. Indeed, the report states that "[a]dditional forcing factors not included here are considered to have a very low level of scientific understanding." And while the report states that "Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years," it also acknowledges that Arctic temperatures vary widely over time and that "a warm period also observed from 1925 to 1945" (during which, there was a 10 year period of constant or declining CO2 concentrations.)

The report also directly contradicts itself by hinting at "suggestions of increased intense tropical cyclone activity" related to global warming, while (on the same page, no less) it admits that there is "insufficient evidence to determine whether trends exist in...small scale phenomena such as tornadoes." But the fatal flaw of this report is that, like much of the hysteria surrounding climate change, it depends heavily on models that cannot take into account forcing factors where there is a "very low level of scientific understanding." While the current models are seemingly adequate to predict climate behavior over oceans and continents, the SPM directly concedes that "[d]ifficulties remain in reliably simulating and attributing observed temperature changes at smaller scales. On these scales, climate variability is relatively larger making it harder to distinguish changes expected due to external forcings."

Other factors that detract from the value of the IPCC's models include the impact of clouds; the SPM itself states clearly that small-scale "[c]loud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty." As much was elucidated by University of London Professor Philip Stott in a February 3, 2007 Wall Street Journal opinion piece. (Subscription required.)

For the skeptic, however, the problem remains, as ever, water vapor and clouds. Enormous uncertainties persist with respect to the role of clouds in climate change. Moreover, models that strive to incorporate everything, from aerosols to vegetation and volcanoes to ocean currents, may look convincing, but the error range associated with each additional factor results in near-total uncertainty. Yet, there is a greater concern. Throughout the history of science, monocausal explanations that overemphasize the dominance of one factor in immensely complex processes (in this case, the human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases) have been inevitably replaced by more powerful theories.

Sadly, like much of the IPCC's previous work product, this SPM is another attempt on the part of the global warming establishment to (over)emphasize the risks of inaction against climate change - this being the original sin of global warming evangelists - while negating the real risks of action, of which there are at least two. The financial risk is that we will spend too much of the global economic product in order to implement CO2-abating technologies that are presently inadequate or inefficient. The more significant risk however is that of inevitably sacrificing lives that could be saved today, were it not for the application of scarce dollars to potentially saving lives in the indeterminate future. That the IPCC refuses to speak clearly to this moral risk - the risk that many of today's generation will have to die, or live with a diminished quality of life - establishes the ethical bankruptcy of the climate change confederacy.

Coming Attractions - As frequent readers of this page will attest, this weblog covers a wide swath of political, social and cultural happenings. To say that this is a full-service blog may be a stretch, but we have been the bull running through a lot of liberal china shops. But most of the attention that this blog receives - both positive and otherwise - comes from our regrettably infrequent discussions of global warming. Sadly, we have not given the topic of climate change its due as of late, especially in light of what has happened in recent days and what will be coming in the days ahead.

The one saving grace is that I am hardly alone in covering the topic from a conservative perspective. Several well-written and persuasive blogs have come to my attention recently, two of which will be added to the blogroll forthwith. I am pleased to commend to your attention the work of The Purple Scorpion (the name has a sort of superhero ring to it) and Pali Gap at A Cool Look At Global Warming. Both of these blogs have the added benefit of providing an ex-U.S. perspective on climate change. Even as the hoax that is man-made climate change is global in nature, so is the resistance.

In the way of coming features, all of us "contrarians" (or worse yet, "deniers") should be aware of the arrival of the fourth installment of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report. With only slightly less fanfare than that which proceeded the launch of Microsoft's Vista operating system, tomorrow will mark the launch of the first volume of the new report. Pre-release reportage from the January 20, 2007 New York Times suggests that the IPCC believes that "it is more than 90 percent likely that global warming since 1950 has been driven by the buildup of carbon dioxide." The story goes on to note that previous assessment reports concluded that there was a "66 to 90 percent" chance that man-made CO2 was driving global warming.

The Times story also states that drafts of the study "project a most likely warming of 4 to 8 degrees" if CO2 levels rise to approximately 560 ppm. But it appears that not all of the report's findings will be discouraging. A story from the January 29, 2007 Toronto Star notes that the report foresees "smaller sea rises than previously predicted." But this finding may not pass muster with many of the scientists involved in developing the study; many scientists contend that the new figures on rising sea levels do not factor in the melting of ice sheets off the coasts of Greenland and Antarctica. (This speaks to a fundamental failing of the IPCC, which seems to consist of scientists more interested in listening to each other's subjective opinions than to objectively observing the available data.)

None of the foregoing suggests that this new assessment will overcome the fundamental weaknesses of the global warming advocacy. Despite the Left's "denier" nomenclature applied to us skeptics, no one denies that the earth's atmosphere is getting warmer, or that atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing. What this report in particular - and the climate change movement more generally - will need to establish, is whether CO2 is a dependent or independent variable in the rise in global temperatures. As noted elsewhere, this is yet an open question.

So too is the question of whether human activity (or more precisely, the cessation of CO2-generating human activity) will be sufficient to produce a meaningful reduction in the amount of atmospheric CO2. As we have discussed elsewhere, global compacts such as Kyoto will be largely inadequate to manifest a significant impact on climate. And as noted by our friends at A Cool Look At Global Warming, human activity may well be among the least of the factors that contribute to atmospheric CO2.

In the Name of Science - One of the constant refrains from the Left is that conservatives are “anti-science,” and they are quick to cite our collective skepticism regarding global warming as proof that such is the case. The fact that progressives lose any sort of perspective when it pertains to climate change, and in fact resort to the same sort of blind zealotry that they accuse the right of is more evidence that they are motivated less by facts than by fear.

The cutting irony is that it is the certainty of liberals on this matter, and their refusal to acknowledge the lack of accord regarding man-made climate change that are the greatest insults to the scientific method in particular and science in general. As Dr. Richard Lindzen suggested in his paper for the CATO Institute magazine Regulation, there is increasing pressure within the scientific community to come to the “right” conclusions. And as the February 2, 2006 Wall Street Journal informs us, one of the casualties of the increasingly acrimonious debate surrounding global warming has been the necessary cooperation between scientists.

The 2,000-plus scientists at the [2006] annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society had plenty to talk about, from last year’s droughts to flash floods and wildfires. But the biggest question at the meeting in Atlanta – why last hurricane season was the worst since recordkeeping began 151 years ago – was almost too hot to handle.

William Gray, America’s most prominent hurricane scientist and an ardent foe of the belief that global warming has worsened hurricanes, was supposed to join a panel discussing the storms. So was Greg Holland of the National Center on Atmospheric Research – who
disagrees with Dr. Gray. But the organizers withdrew the invitations after deciding the dispute had grown so nasty it was too risky to put the two in the same room.

The internecine wrangling within the scientific community notwithstanding, we would do well to remember that real science welcomes, indeed engenders skepticism. As Robert K. Merton observed in his essay, “Science and the Social Order,” “[m]ost institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.” The pseudo-science behind global warming is threatened by anything other than capitulation to the “scientific consensus,” which on this topic is little more than shared ignorance.

With nary a trace of irony, progressives suggest that global warming will be simultaneously responsible for flooding caused by torrential rainfalls in some areas, and droughts in others. But by now, we are quite used to both the Left’s arrogance and hysterics. After all, global warming is only today’s bete noir. Hysteria on the part of left-leaning environmentalists led to a ban on the use of the pesticide DDT in the United States. And even with today’s advances in food production, the frantic Left will intermittently become panic-stricken over their Malthusian visions of global famine based on supposedly unsustainable population growth.

Even more curious, because of temperature trends in the 1950s and 1960s, many scholarly publications in the mid-1970s – along with such paragons of mainstream journalism as The New York Times, Time and Newsweek – were sounding similarly hectic alarms about global cooling. In an apologia published on the Newsweek website on October 23, 2006, Jerry Adler admits that the news media may have correctly reported incorrect predictions regarding global cooling based on the science of that time, while simultaneously suggesting that today’s science supporting global warming is more robust and predictive.

The point to remember … is that predictions of global cooling never approached the kind of widespread scientific consensus that supports the greenhouse effect today. And for good reason: the tools scientists have at their disposal now—vastly more data, incomparably faster computers and infinitely more sophisticated mathematical models—render any forecasts from 1975 as inoperative as the predictions being made around the same time about the inevitable triumph of communism.

So with this comment, Mr. Adler reveals one of the differences between scientists and journalists. A journalist (or for that matter, any other layperson) might well assume that all of the vagaries of the universe would be revealed if researchers only had better tools at their disposal; one can imagine Mr. Adler positing that Mother Nature is in reality a scientist with a really powerful computer. But if the tools available to scientists in 1975 were more useful than they were in 1945 – as one would presume that they would have been – wouldn’t the same be true regarding the instruments that would be available to science in 2055?

Might Mr. Adler concede that there are certain things yet to be revealed to smart people with fast computers? And might not the histrionics of today’s global warming advocates be rendered moot by knowledge that is yet to be uncovered? While scientific inquiry yields the fruit of knowledge, it does even more to instill humility in the researcher, as researchers invariably discover more questions than answers. Indeed, it is the scientist most of all who understands that the gap between man’s understanding and that which lies beyond will never entirely be bridged by “more sophisticated mathematical models.”

The Cost of Overheated Hysteria - Today's NYT presents an article that makes the case that in order to provide an incentive for corporations to reduce their emissions of CO2, either a carbon tax or a "cap-and-trade" system would need to be implemented as a means of forestalling global climate change.

Global warming can be seen as a classic "market failure," and many economists, environmental experts and policy makers agree that the single largest cause of that failure is that in most of the world, there is no price placed on spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The article goes on to say:

Economists like William D. Nordhaus of Yale and Mr. [Richard] Cooper of Harvard advocate a tax as the clearest price signal to the energy marketplace, and less susceptible to political tampering and market manipulation than a cap-and-trade system. It could also be used to raise revenue to offset other taxes.

Indeed, most of the economists cited seem to agree that some sort of new revenue stream - on the order of 1 to 2 percent of U.S. GDP per year - would be needed to offset the total cost of reducing and/or reversing the growth of CO2 emissions, as well as to encourage the development and use of "cleaner" energy sources. For his part, Mr. Cooper estimated that a tax of $14 per ton of CO2 would generate $80 billion in the U.S., and would add 12 cents to the cost of a gallon of gasoline.

The NYT piece attempts to present several good arguments in favor of some sort of market incentives for corporations to reduce their CO2 emissions, but it sidesteps the most glaring deficiency peculiar to a carbon tax scheme. The very thing that makes a tax less susceptible to "market manipulation" - it's implementation via statute, as opposed to the voluntary nature of a cap-and-trade system - would also make companies subject to such a tax less able to deal with economic counter-incentives, such as lower cost competition from foreign companies not similarly impacted. By design, a carbon tax would affect certain industries disproportionately, with affected companies unable to indemnify themselves by distributing the costs of CO2 emissions reduction across the economy.

If there is any good news to be found in all of this, it is the fact that free markets are coming to the rescue, as they often have in issues regarding the environment. (Even the NYT conceded that "caps and trading have a record of success in combating acid rain.") Several states in the Northeast are looking at implementing a "cap and trade" strategy for the area's power plants that assign each plant an emissions quota, and then allow the use of offsets and emissions-credit trading that would simplify compliance and reward energy producers that reduce emissions below established levels. We can also be encouraged by the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, an emerging alliance between the U.S. and several countries in Asia and the South Pacific that is intended to reduce greenhouse emissions through economic growth and investments in cleaner energy sources, such as hydrogen fuel cells and solar technologies.

According to Protocol - To hear USA Today tell it, the Kyoto Protocol has had a negligible effect on CO2 emissions. According to a study conducted by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), the world's growth rate of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere has more than doubled, from less than 1 percent for most of the 1990s to more than 2.5 percent from 2000 to 2005. The CSIRO research also showed that 2005 was the fourth consecutive year of above average emissions.

That all of this occurred even as Kyoto was in effect should not surprise. As it is, many of the countries that implemented Kyoto are hard pressed to meet their current targets for emissions reductions, which for most developed countries mandated a 5.2 percent reduction in their production of greenhouse gases. According to data presented by the European Environment Agency in their report, The European Environment – State and outlook 2005, “After more than half the time period between 1990 [the baseline year for most of the 15 European Union signatories to Kyoto] and the first commitment period (2008–2012) under the Kyoto Protocol, the reduction by 2003 was less than a quarter of that needed to reach the EU-15 target.”

According to the report, in 2002, emissions were above the 1990 baseline by more than 10 percent in Italy and Greece, more than 20 percent in Ireland and Portugal, and more than 30 percent in Spain. Even for countries that have met their Kyoto targets, this is often the result of one-time events, as in the case of Germany, which met its goal through “a replacement of ‘old technologies’ following German reunification in the early 1990s.”

Yet again, even as leftist elites throw the world “under the bus” through the use of unworkable treaties such as Kyoto, they simultaneously attempt to punish the developed world for its successes and regulate the developing world’s access to the means of societal uplift through growth in industrial capacity. (Ironically, by waving the banner of global warming, the overindulged and under-occupied drain the scarce milk of human kindness away from activities that would have a more tangible benefit for the world's benighted.) As discussed elsewhere, it appears that most experts agree that reducing CO2 emissions is not the best way to address the problems of the developing world.

The Left’s insistence on implementing global compacts in order to reduce the production of greenhouse gases is all the more puzzling when you take the words of their proponents at face value. In December of 2005, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was quoted as saying, “The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge.” (Perhaps this is why the treaty does not include two of the biggest producers of greenhouse emissions besides the United States, China and India, with China being the world second largest emitter of greenhouse gases.)

But perhaps the greatest outrage as it pertains to Kyoto is its lack of efficacy in impacting predicted climate change, even if it were perfectly implemented. Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish statistician and adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School, as well as the author of 2001’s The Skeptical Environmentalist (and global warming evangelist), went on to state his opinion on the Kyoto Treaty.

As a matter of fact we can see that the effect of the Kyoto Protocol will be marginal – even if we assume that the Kyoto emission ceilings will be kept in place indefinitely, an issue which has not been addressed by the protocol. Several models have calculated that the consequence of Kyoto will be a temperature increase by 2100 of around 0.15°C less than if nothing had been done...Equivalently, the permanent Kyoto curbs on carbon emissions would result in a sea level rise in 2100 which will be just 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) less.

To Dr. Lomborg’s point, according to Dr. Tom Wigley, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, if the Kyoto Protocol were fully implemented by the current signatories, it would reduce temperatures by a mere 0.07 degrees Celsius by 2050, and 0.13 degrees Celsius by 2100.

A durable hysteria, pt. 2 - Despite the weight of reasonable doubt, global warming advocates continue to suggest that a robust unanimity of opinion exists regarding anthropogencic climate change. To the reasonable observer, it does appear that global warming researchers are resistant to explanations that do not support their “consensus.” Some of this may be explained by an article published in the Spring 1992 issue of the CATO Institute's Regulation entitled, “Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Global Consensus.” Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at M.I.T. suggests that after the end of the Cold War, many agencies that were involved with national defense such as NASA, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy “have appropriated the issue of climate change to support existing efforts.” In highlighting his objection to the scientific community’s “exploiting” the issue of climate change, Dr. Lindzen went on to elaborate his concerns.

A parochial issue is the danger to the science of climatology. As far as I can tell, there has actually been reduced funding for existing research. That may seem paradoxical, but, at least in the United States, the vastly increased number of scientists and others involving themselves in climate as well as the gigantic programs attaching themselves to climate have substantially outstripped the increases in funding. Perhaps more important are the pressures brought to bear on scientists to get the “right” results.† Such pressures are inevitable, given how far out on a limb much of the scientific community has gone. The situation is compounded by the fact that some of the strongest proponents of “global warming” in Congress are also among the major supporters of science…I should add that as ever greater numbers of individuals attach themselves to the warming problem, the pressures against solving the problem grow proportionally; an inordinate number of individuals and groups depend upon the problem’s remaining.

As for celebrity Left such as the previously-mentioned Leo DiCaprio and Larry David, along with George Clooney, Julia Roberts and many others, global warming provides the chance to play the lead in an once-in-a-lifetime real world drama. Indeed, global warming has become a pet cause for many among the affluent, both in the U.S. and internationally. The prominent characteristic that these economic elites share is that they all find themselves stationed above the common concerns shared by the masses that live in putrificent squalor. Having transcended war, famine, pestilence and kleptocratic and/or genocidal governments, these who rally around global warming’s colors seek to establish a solidarity of misery with those who find themselves afflicted by the more classic threats to man’s existence.

And for those on the Left whose anti-capitalist agenda will only allow them to see economic development (particularly that of the United States) as a malignancy, the fear mongering regarding global warming best serves as another useful tool. Margot Wallstrom, the European Union’s Commissioner for the Environment admitted as much when she commented, “[Global warming] is not a simple environmental issue where you can say it is an issue where scientists are not unanimous. This is about international relations. This is about economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big business throughout the world.”

† Dr. Lindzen’s commentary on scientists feeling the need to generate the “right” results bears greater import in light of the previously cited report to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The report was intended in part to serve as a social network analysis designed to examine if and how the insularity of the paleoclimate research community affected its work. In the report, the authors noted that as it pertained to climate change research, “there was too much reliance of peer review, which was not necessarily independent.” The report goes on to conclude “[a]s analyzed in our social network, there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis. However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility.”

A durable hysteria - So exactly what accounts for the durability of global warming hysteria? To be sure, in that we live in a society that hardly recognizes any kind of real heroism, the prospect of man-made global warming presents an opportunity for cheap and easy heroism. For many people, the belief that individuals can “save the planet” is a most attractive self-deception, especially for those whose lives are otherwise without distinction.

For others, global warming feeds into an intrinsic need to maintain an illusion of control over their lives and surroundings. Members of the scientific community are especially susceptible to this illusion, in that they often conclude that anything that can be understood – however imprecisely – can also be controlled. As we might expect, many politicians who take up the cause of climate change as a way to show their governmental gallantry, with the corollary benefit being a chance to burnish their liberal bona fides.

Another dynamic that reinforces the sense of impending doom seems to be the herd mentality that seems universal among global warming researchers.† This is in spite of the fact that such a mindset has been an impediment to empirical discovery throughout history; we need only think back to Copernicus to know that such has often been the case. Traditionally, scientific advances have rarely been achieved by building upon consensus, but rather by challenging it in a methodical way, with the old understandings yielding under the weight of a new explanatory paradigm.

For reasons that are perhaps only tangentially related to science, global warming researchers appear to be resistant to explanations that do not support their “consensus.” Writing in the U.K. Telegraph on April 9, 2006, James Cook University climate researcher Bob Carter provides a lasting insight on the issue of science in pursuit of non-scientific interests.

Does something not strike you as odd here? That industrial carbon dioxide is not the primary cause of the earth’s recent decadal-scale temperature changes doesn’t seem at all odd to many thousands of independent scientists. They have long appreciated – ever since the early 1990s, when the global warming bandwagon first started to roll behind the gravy train of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – that such short-term climate fluctuations are chiefly of natural origin. Yet the public appears to be largely convinced otherwise. How is this possible?

The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike. Governments generally choose not to receive policy advice on climate from independent scientists. Rather, they seek guidance from their own self-interested science bureaucracies and senior advisers, or from the IPCC itself.

† Perhaps this mindset only appears to be universal among climate researchers. Since 1999, the Oregon Petition Project maintains a list of over 19,000 signatories – many of whom hold advanced degrees in physical or environmental sciences, chemistry, biochemistry or life sciences – who are of the opinion that “[t]here 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.” Similarly, a number of academics have signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration, which rejected the global warming hypothesis, along with the 1997 revised declaration opposing the Kyoto Protocol.

A Paucity of Evidence, pt. 5 - Perhaps the most pertinent question regarding global warming is whether carbon dioxide, be it man-made or naturally occurring, is the major determinant of global climate to begin with. Although CO2 is the predominant greenhouse gas, water vapor is a more significant driver of the earth’s greenhouse effect, being more abundant in the atmosphere and having up to ten times the warming effect of CO2. Furthermore, in a widely-cited commentary that was published in the May 2001 issue of the now-defunct journal Chemical Innovation, Robert H. Essenhigh postulated that CO2 does not induce global warming.

In his piece, Dr. Essenhigh suggests that rather than increases in atmospheric CO2 driving global warming, it is global warming – induced by the effect of water vapor on the radiative absorbing/emitting properties of the atmosphere – which accounts for increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Professor Essenhigh posits that “the dominant source …for CO2 are the oceans, accounting for about two-thirds of the exchange, with vegetation as the major secondary source,” and that the CO2 contribution to earth’s atmosphere from human generated sources “is within the statistical noise of the major sea and vegetation exchanges, so a priori, it cannot be expected to be statistically significant.”

It would be a tragedy if the sturm und drang regarding global warming were simply a classic mismatch of cause and effect. Given the contradictory research regarding the impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gases on global temperatures and the absence of sound predictive models, the threat of man-made global warming seems to represent coincidence masquerading as causation. It still remains unclear whether greenhouse gases are solely responsible for recently observed global climate changes. Scientists who have attempted to look at the earth’s climate over the last millennium have concluded that temperature fluctuations have been a part of the climatological history of the earth, and that significant climate change certainly occurred long before the development of the combustion engine.

The work of many other scientists suggests that our understanding of the water cycle and its impact of water vapor in the atmosphere is incomplete at best; when water vapor and other natural factors (e.g.: the carbon cycle) are included, man’s contribution to the overall greenhouse effect may yet be infinitesimal. At this point, any discussion of global warming beyond the context of the hypothetical is based more on faith in pseudo-scientific canon than in scientific fact.

Moreover, the public’s opinion of the causes and seriousness of global warming are far from unanimous, as verified by a July 2006 Pew Research Center survey entitled “Little Consensus on Global Warming.”

Roughly four-in-ten (41 percent) believe human activity such as burning fossil fuels is causing global warming, but just as many say either that global warming has been caused by natural patterns in the earth’s environment (21 percent), or that there is no solid evidence of global warming (20 percent).

The public also is divided over the gravity of the problem. While 41 percent say global warming is a very serious problem, 33 percent see it as somewhat serious and roughly a quarter (24 percent) think it is either not too serious or not a problem at all. Consequently, the issue ranks as a relatively low priority, well behind education, the economy, and the war in Iraq.

A Paucity of Evidence, pt. 4 - Cyclical variances in global temperatures also complicate things for those who would make the case for anthropogenic global warming. Generally speaking, long-term trends in temperature are not unusual, as the earth is always either warming or cooling. The existence of temperature cycles is reflected in data from the IPCC which suggest that the fluctuations in average global temperatures observed during the period between 1400 and 1500 A.D. were nearly as great as that recorded between 1900 and 2000 A.D. Global temperature variability has also been extensively detailed in a paper authored by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics entitled, “Reconstructing Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years: A Reappraisal,” published in Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, 1 May 2003, pp. 233-296.

The study authors examined the climactic history of the earth over the past 1000 years by reviewing changes in glaciers, corals, stalagmites and fossils, as well as investigations of cores drilled out of sediments lying at the bottom of bodies of water. The paper’s abstract states that currently available evidence, “establishes the reality of both the Little Ice Age (1300 to 1900 A.D.) and the Medieval Warm Period (800 to 1300 A.D.) as climatic anomalies with world-wide imprints.” The abstract goes on to say, “many records reveal that the 20th century is likely not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium.”

Temperature variability has also been detected on Mars, suggesting that global temperatures may be mediated by factors other than man-made greenhouse gases. Since arriving at Mars in 1997, NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) has enabled scientists to observe changes in the size and thickness of the polar ice caps on the Red Planet that go beyond the seasonal changes in the ice caps that have been previously documented. The ice caps themselves seem to be comprised of a thin surface layer of frozen CO2 and a thicker layer of frozen water.

The spacecraft has observed a gradual evaporation of the carbon dioxide ice in one of Mars’ polar caps, pointing to a slowly changing Mars climate. At this point, scientists are unsure as to whether the shrinking of the polar caps is related to increased solar activity or if there is some other explanation. As Michael Malin, principal investigator for the MGS Mars Orbiter Camera put it “Why is Mars warmer today that it was in the past, we really have no way of knowing why.”

What we do know as it pertains to the Sun’s impact on global temperature is that there are and have been measurable changes in sunspot activity throughout various periods of time. The Sun normally has an 11-year cycle of increasing and decreasing numbers of sunspots (although the cycle has been as short as 8 years and as long as 15.) This sunspot cycle is part of an approximately 22-year solar magnetic cycle, and is monitored and measured by the number of sunspots seen at any given time, as sunspots reflect the overall activity near the surface of the Sun.

But above and beyond these normal fluctuations, there is evidence that the Sun’s radiation has increased since the late 1970s. This evidence comes from research authored by Richard Willson, a Columbia University researcher also affiliated with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and published in the March 4, 2003 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. Dr. Willson’s paper, entitled, “Secular total solar irradiance trend during solar cycles 21–23,” analyzed data from six satellites orbiting Earth at different times over 24 years to conclude that the Total Solar Irradiance (as measured by the amount of solar energy that falls upon a square meter outside the Earth’s atmosphere) has increased by .05 percent per decade.

Similar findings have been observed by scientists at Duke University. According to work done by Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West, both professors in the university’s physics department, “the sun may have minimally contributed about 10 to 30 percent of the 1980-2002 global surface warming.” Using a 22 year period allowed Drs. Scafetta and West to control for short term factors that may temporarily cool the atmosphere, such as changes in ocean current and volcanic eruptions. Their research built upon the work done by Dr. Willson, and was published in the September 28, 2005 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

Dr. Willson’s research has been corroborated by a study done by a team of Swiss and German researchers and led by Dr. Sami Solanki, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany. When Dr. Solanki was interviewed for the July 18, 2004 edition of the U.K. Telegraph, he is quoted as saying “The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and now may be affecting global temperatures.”