Given the heat waves that have been smothering most of America in recent weeks, one can be forgiven for thinking that all of the alarmist warnings about global warming have finally come true.
This, however, would require one to forget not only that there’s nothing new about summer heat waves, but that just a couple of months ago people were complaining about “global cooling” after Mother Nature dumped over 18 inches of late-spring snow on Colorado. Also, to get a little perspective, it might be helpful to remember how virtually everyone was pining in the dead of last winter for the very summer heat virtually everyone is now complaining about.
At any rate, it has been a while since I weighed in on the global-warming debate. This is because I thought it had pretty much ended after the shocking, embarrassing and dispositive revelations about the way scientists fudged data to provide environmental activists like Al Gore with “convenient” truths to proselytize their views.
These revelations should compel the Nobel Committee to revoke the IPCC’s, as well as Al Gore’s, Nobel Prize. Although, with British MPs calling for criminal prosecutions, Dr Pachauri, Prof Jones and others clearly have far more to worry about than professional humiliation.
(Climate change: as much fraud as junk science, The iPINIONS Journal, February 2, 2010)
Yet here was the unrepentant Gore only a couple of weeks ago announcing a new “Inconvenient Truth 2.0” campaign to “expose the reality of a global-warming crisis”:
As the impacts of climate change are growing more prevalent, so is the resistance to finding the truth and implementing solutions. Just like the tobacco companies that spent decades in denial that smoking causes cancer, oil and coal companies are determined to sow denial and confusion about the science of climate change, ignore its impacts, and create apathy among our leaders.
(The Guardian, July 12, 2011)
The problem of course is that Gore is the prophet of denial when it comes to resistance to accepting the truth about global warming. Because far from growing more prevalent, here is what the latest scientific findings show:
NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted… The study indicates far less future global warming will occur … than alarmists have claimed…
When objective NASA satellite data, reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, show a “huge discrepancy” between alarmist climate models and real-world facts, climate scientists, the media and our elected officials would be wise to take notice.
(Forbes, July 27, 2011)
Hear, hear; but take notice? Don’t hold your breath.
All the same, I feel constrained to reiterate the uncontroverted views I posited on this debate from the outset:
I am convinced that all of the preaching about global warming is just hot air. Of course the planet is getting warmer (even if only by a sweltering 1°F (.17°C) every 100 years … ouch!). Moreover, I have no doubt that humans (especially Americans) are marginally to blame. But I also have no doubt that this warming is simply due to natural climate variations (i.e., a cyclical phenomenon).
(Final word on global warming, The iPINIONS Journal, August 8, 2006)
That said, this really is my final world on global warming.
Related commentaries:
Climate change…
Final word on global warming…
Global cooling? Yes