It seems that everywhere you turn, people are convinced that global warming is real, and that man is the definitive cause of it. It's kind of like a quasi-religion, and if you're skeptical of all the doom and gloom then you're labeled a heretic. At least skeptics aren't being burned at the stake, I guess.

There are plenty of great things to read if you want to understand why a global warming skeptic is a skeptic. Most global warming alarmists don't care - you could present them with irrefutable emperical evidence and it wouldn't shake their faith that if we don't do something now, the whole world is going to end.

A big hat tip to blogger Heath W. Casey for the following links - he tracks stuff like this from time to time.

Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts? - Dr. Tim Ball, who has a PhD in climatology, brings a refreshing perspective to the debate (February 2007):

I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.

Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

Global Warming Gag Order - Senators John D. Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe sent a letter to ExxonMobil (December 2006, full text here), basically trying to bully them into their way of thinking. As the editorial states:

The Senators aren't dumb enough to risk an ethics inquiry by threatening specific consequences if Mr. Tillerson declines this offer he can't refuse. But in case the CEO doesn't understand his company's jeopardy, they add that "ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years." (Our emphasis.) The Senators also graciously copied the Exxon board on their missive.

Aliens Cause Global Warming - a speech given in 2003 by Michael Crichton (author of the excellent book State of Fear, which has more information on global warming than Al Gore's movie), in which he explains how the famous Drake equation - an "approximation" of the likelihood of intelligent alien life in the universe - led to the dubious science that led to wild claims about nuclear winter, second-hand smoke, and finally, global warming, all without testable hypothesis and factual basis:

And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science - or non-science - is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming. It is not my purpose here to rehash the details of this most magnificent of the demons haunting the world. I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established. Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron. Next, the isolation of those scientists who won't get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and "skeptics" in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nutcases. In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done.

When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it?

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the modelmakers is breathtaking. There have been, in every century, scientists who say they know it all. Since climate may be a chaotic system - no one is sure - these predictions are inherently doubtful, to be polite. But more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd.

Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?

Hot & Cold Media Spin: A Challenge To Journalists Who Cover Global Warming - Senator James Inhofe takes on Global Warming (September 2006). A great read:

Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930’s the media pedaled a coming ice age.

From the late 1920’s until the 1960’s they warned of global warming. From the 1950’s until the 1970’s they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate’s fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years. Recently, advocates of alarmism have grown increasingly desperate to try to convince the public that global warming is the greatest moral issue of our generation. Just last week, the vice president of London’s Royal Society sent a chilling letter to the media encouraging them to stifle the voices of scientists skeptical of climate alarmism.

During the past year, the American people have been served up an unprecedented parade of environmental alarmism by the media and entertainment industry, which link every possible weather event to global warming. The year 2006 saw many major organs of the media dismiss any pretense of balance and objectivity on climate change coverage and instead crossed squarely into global warming advocacy.

Don't buy into the hype. Be a proud skeptic of anything any politician tries to sell you. Especially if a policy's proponents act particularly religious about their belief that they're trying to squelch any dissent on.

Labels: politics