As we race towards a future fraught with economic and environmental uncertainty; and as global forces pull at our cherished freedoms and political institutions, at the risk of more ridicule and condescension from the ever faithful greenies amongst us, let's take another look at global warming, cap & trade and the forces behind both.Some years back the climate models being developed by the global warming fraternity were in need of some tweaking to be consistent with real world observations. Ignoring the actual causes, in any case preferring to establish a link to CO2, they attributed a warming capacity for CO2 just sufficient to bring the models into line with reality.
Al Gore's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), then announced that man made CO2 was the primary cause of global temperature changes to get the bandwagon rolling. It was irresponsible to trumpet it then as the explanation, and more so to continue to rely on it today.
Their models still do not reflect real world activity. They did not anticipate the stall in temperature trend which the Hadley Center shows to have occurred since 1998. And they certainly did not anticipate the cooling which appears to have commenced in 2007.
Mr. Gore and his colleagues at the IPCC maintain that there is an increase in global average temperatures, due to man-made intervention resulting in a “greenhouse effect.” They ignore natural phenomena, such as solar variation.
It is because solar influences have been discounted that the IPCC and their climate modellers have been able to attribute most of the observed warming during that period to an enhanced greenhouse effect caused by CO2 allegedly produced by human activity.
Consequently their climate models contain no solar effects as a component.
They are wrong and, in fact, solar energy is and always has been the overwhelming primary driver for global temperature, with CO2 such a minor component that it should be ignored. Due to the differences in scale between the solar effect and the effect of CO2, the latter is never going to have more than a marginal effect at and around the peak of any natural warming trend, and is unlikely to activate any tipping point that would not have been activated by natural cause. Indeed, during natural cooling spells CO2 will be a wholly beneficial mitigating factor.
Dr. John Christy, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Alabama, and leading author of the IPCC report now says, “human intervention accounts for a small fraction of CO2 of the atmospheric gases in the atmosphere; water vapor accounts for about 97% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. CO2 accounts for 1.9%. Therefore, man is responsible for less than 3% of all greenhouse effect in the atmosphere globally.”
According to Tim Patterson, Professor of Earth Sciences at Carlton University, “Many things we thought we knew about the climate system just a few years ago are now proving to be uncertain or quite mistaken.”
Patterson likes to remind us, “There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over the [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years.”
Dr. Robert Balling, former director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University points out, “It’s become quite news worthy to go out and tell people that we are about to have an apocalyptic climate change. And the moment you make that announcement, it’s easy to go around the world and find things to support that viewpoint.”
Dr. Ian Clark recalls, "The major premise of An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore is that carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas that drives the temperature of the earth. But Carbon dioxide gas (CO2) lags behind temperature changes in history by 800 years; CO2 doesn’t cause temperature change.”
Given historical temperatures from the late 14th and early 15th century, the solar/oceanic driver theory would have us expect naturally rising levels of CO2 throughout the 21st century and well into the 22nd. The warming occurring on other planets in our solar system also discredits anthropogenic CO2 as a cause given the relative lack of industrialization elsewhere in our universe.
And Professor Tim Ball, a climatologist at the University of Winnipeg agrees with Clark. “Based on the evidence of ice core studies at the polar ice caps, it shows that CO2 follows temperature, not the opposite. So the fundamental assumption of the whole theory of climate change by human intervention of CO2 emissions causing temperature changes is wrong.”
The central claim in An Inconvenient Truth is based on the MBH temperature study of 1998, which showed a significant temperature rise in the last century like never before in history.
What Mr. Gore fails to acknowledge is the report, named after the authors, Mann, Bradley, Hughes, was shown to be wrong and incomplete by an updated report in Geophysical Research Letters done by McIntyre and McKitrick in 2006. (see chart at top of page)
And of course Gore et al continue to make almost hysterical claims about matters in the Antarctic. This in the face of recent findings in peer-reviewed literature showing that the Antarctic is getting colder and the ice is growing,
Khabibullo Abdusamatov, a scientist who heads the space research sector for the Russian Academy of Sciences, in August predicted long-term global cooling due to a projected decrease in the sun’s output. This supports the long held position of our own Dr. Donald Easterbrook of Western Washington University, one of the first to find fault with the theory of global warming.
Having observed the failure of the IPCC model, based on its speculative CO2 component, and having seen the relative success of the solar and astronomic data at anticipating and explaining real world changes, Stephen Wilde, a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968, has written, “Global temperature is controlled quite precisely (although it is difficult to calculate) by solar energy modulated by a number of overlapping and interlinked oceanic cycles each operating on different time scales and being of varying intensities, sometimes offsetting one another and sometimes complementing one another.
Any other single influence such as an enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 is just one of a plethora of other potential but relatively minor influences which as often as not offset one another and leave the solar/oceanic driver unchallenged in terms of scale.”
Wilde points to powerful solar cycles from 1975 to about 2000 in combination with a positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) as the combination that produced the warming that led to the confusion of the IPCC modellers.
During positive PDO cycles we have more el ninos; during negative PDOs, more la ninas; warmer than average and cooler than average waters between the intenational dateline and the coast of South America. This region is sometimes called the master weather maker.
And Wilde reminds us that solar cycles 18, 19, 21, 22 and the double peak of cycle 23 produced the most intense period of solar activity since the Maunder minimum; the period of weak solar activity that produced frigid conditions which, if repeated now, would be disastrous for our much more highly populated planet.
Wilde states, “In my personal opinion it was criminal for the IPCC and the modellers to ignore all that on the basis of some nebulous concept termed Total Solar Irradiance. On the basis of the information in the public domain about solar cycles and the positive PDO it should have been blatantly obvious that the world would warm up without the need to speculate on a contribution from CO2 or anything else. But, no, they left the solar component out of the models and saw no significance in a positive PDO.”
Could it be that the IPCC and the modellers have their own agenda and are recommending exactly the opposite policy decisions than the world really needs?
According to Dr. Vincent Gray, chemist and one of the original chief IPCC researchers, “The IPCC is a political organization setup by the UN to provide evidence to support the framework convention on climate change; it’s entirely political. They made up what they were going to do beforehand and choose whatever science they (IPCC) could find to support their theory.”
Dr. Michael Coffman, noted biologist and ecologist, warns, “The global warming /climate change issue is so important that people on both sides of the issue, including policymakers should be fully informed before policy is actually formulated. Tragically, that’s not happening in the global warming issue.”
There is evidence that many parts of the globe have experienced record cold temperatures dating back over one hundred years. One only has to look at China’s reports of last winter’s ‘climate crisis’ to see that certain areas of China were rendered uninhabitable for a time. North America's experience was similarly critical.
If the solar/oceanic driver theory is correct it would mean the current cooling process will consolidate and continue for decades, causing crops to fail, growing areas to shrink, summers to shorten and the environment suitable for plant and animal life to be closer to the equator again.
Again Dr. Coffman has pointed out that what is being proposed by Gore and his colleagues at the IPCC is that man is the primary cause of global warming, but there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary put forth by prominent scientists from around the world.
So what is behind the hysteria to promote global warming as a reality? Why does Al Gore use this Madison Avenue approach to instill fear? Why does he promote the Kyoto Protocol and the IPCC to impose international solutions to stop global warming? And how does he afford it? These concerns about the policymaking of such international organizations, like the IPCC, have led many to question whether this is an issue of global warming or global governance.
As reported by Foundation Watch, “with help from friends at Goldman Sachs, including former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and the investment bank’s former CEO Hank Paulson, Gore has created a web of organizations to promote the so-called climate crisis. Meanwhile, Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection is pushing for tougher environmental regulations on the private sector.
It wants “cap-and-trade” legislation enacted so that companies will be forced to lower their CO2 emissions and buy carbon credits. Untold billions of dollars could be generated in the new U.S. carbon market. When Gore's potential for immense profits is factored in, the $300 million outlay for ads (some of which is likely to come from donations to the Alliance's "We Campaign") seems like a drop in the bucket.”
If Gore can keep the bandwagon for carbon emissions restrictions rolling, he could end up a very wealthy man.
The record shows that presently $4 Billion per year is spent on global warming research. Much of the funding for these research projects has been provided by “Public-Private-Partnerships” (does the name Geithner come to mind) composed of multi-national corporations and NGO’s promoting the one world government concept.
Add to this the many organizations constituting “Big Green” that, after decades of support from various trusts and foundations, many associated with the Rockefeller family and their interests, have largely displaced local and volunteer conservation groups. Consider David Rockefeller's unabashed and unembarrassed embrace of world government and the family's long support of the United Nations. Consider how these mega environmentalists have gained inordinate public influence through their self promotion, and how their endorsements affect political candidacies.
The connections deserve investigation.
None of those in control of these entities are elected and there is no accountability to the citizens of the U.S. These groups are free to impose their will on people with little recourse. Partnerships like these, which Al Gore is part of, are given a platform to introduce such entities as the IPCC and the forthcoming Copenhagen Accord as stepping stones to control the national and local economies of the U.S.and other nations, through such things as the carbon tax before congress at this time.
Prudence, given the evidence before us establishes nothing is scientifically settled in the global warming debate, dictates we should be cautious and consider both the possibility of resumed warming or more continued painful cooling.
By all means preserve resources and improve efficiency. Develop alternative energy sources because fossil based sources will run out. But if we really are in for a period of cooling we can be more liberal about the use of fossil fuels and energy generally.
Information in the public domain demonstrates “global warming” is far from the established fact globalists would have you believe. I leave it to the reader to decide if they are using tools like the IPCC and propaganda like “global warming” to impose global governance. You decide if warnings about global governance efforts are delusions based on myths.
The followers in the environmental movement need to ask themselves some serious questions before they find they're swept up in some “faith based initiative”, like Christian social conservatives were, resulting in government and policies that should and will offend their true beliefs and leave them with no real voice.
Will we do something good for a bad reason; or something bad for a good reason?
