Posted on 04/01/2007 9:57:26 AM PDT by yoe
The Academy awards ceremony may have hailed Al Gore as a prophetic hero, but history will treat him as the personification of an incredible delusion: the idea that carbon dioxide emissions fundamentally affect the Earth’s weather patterns.
While much of the media treats this theory as catastrophic fact, the fact is it ain’t—it’s an unproved theory. Over the last few decades carbon dioxide emissions have risen, and there has been a slight increase in the Earth’s temperature. Ergo, goes the theory, it must be cause and effect and—ergo, ergo—we must take draconian measures to reduce the emissions, even if that means sharply cutting our standard of living and massively increasing bureaucratic controls over our lives.
Green socialism has now replaced the Red variety. As near as anyone can figure, the Earth’s surface temperature increased 1 degree Fahrenheit in the 20th century. But about half of that increase came before 1940, when carbon dioxide emissions were a fraction of the level they are today. Temperatures declined slightly after 1940 until the mid-1970s, even though emissions were increasing. In the real world this would be pretty flimsy proof of a cause-effect relationship. But human beings are prey to hysteria and delusions. Goreites have taken to calling doubters of their apocalyptic vision “globalwarming deniers,” a demagogic allusion to “Holocaust deniers.” Doubting climatologists are often hounded in government and in academia.
You’d never know from all the shrill hullabaloo that weather patterns have been changing for about as long as the Earth has existed. From about A.D. 900 to 1300 the Earth’s temperatures were even warmer than they are today, which is one reason Greenland was named Greenland. Southern England in those years was a wine-growing region. Last we looked, however, there was no evidence of knights in shining armor having ridden around medieval Europe in SUVs. Then from about 1300 to the mid-1800s there was a mini-ice age. Famines in Europe were far more frequent because of the colder weather. Since then the weather has gotten warmer. Experts still don’t know for sure what has caused the Earth’s ice ages. In the mid-1970s, for example, the media was full of stories about an impending ice age. Models used to predict Gore-ite futures have been unable to predict past weather patterns.
But weather does respond to changes in the solar radiation activity of the sun. It also appears to be affected by slight changes in the tilt of the Earth. As for carbon dioxide emissions, their impact is, at worst, minimal. In fact, even the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledges that pollutant particles reflect sunlight back into space, which has a cooling effect. Yet Gore’s vividly illustrated, award-laden documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, treats us to images of the seas rising by 20 feet. However, the UN’s latest report has revised downward—from 36 inches to 17 inches—its estimates of how much the seas are going to rise in the next 100 years.
We are told that global warming is putting polar bears on the road to extinction, even though the overall polar bear population today is higher than it’s been in decades. Glaciers? Despite Gore-y images of them all rapidly melting away, the inconvenient truth is that many of them are expanding.
This hysterical belief in unproved theories is not new. For centuries Europeans and, later, North Americans believed in the existence of witches. In the 1970s most experts were convinced the Earth faced imminent mass famine. In the first half of the 20th century many educated people believed in eugenics—the theory that human beings could be improved if “inferior” people with low IQs were forcibly sterilized (or, in the case of the Nazis, exterminated). In the late 1920s Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said during a case involving forced sterilization, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
Thankfully, despite all the widespread misconceptions about weather, we are not going to submit to Gore-ite socialist global government regulations. In fact, some good may come out of this: a major push for nuclear power—a proved, ultraclean, nonemitting energy producer.
. . .and when 'pigs fly'; Al will put HIS money where his mouth is. Meantime; we can just put money in his pocket; for those 'carbon credits'; and light our homes with beautiful flourescents.
That said. . .just say NO to algore. . .and stop the mythmaking. . .
Known causes or “drivers” of past climate change include:
Changes in the Earth's orbit: Changes in the shape of the Earth's orbit (or eccentricity) as well as the Earth's tilt and precession affect the amount of sunlight received on the Earth's surface. These orbital processes -- which function in cycles of 100,000 (eccentricity), 41,000 (tilt), and 19,000 to 23,000 (precession) years -- are thought to be the most significant drivers of ice ages according to the theory of Mulitin Milankovitch, a Serbian mathematician (1879-1958). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Earth Observatory offers additional information about orbital variations and the Milankovitch Theory.
Changes in the sun's intensity: Changes occurring within (or inside) the sun can affect the intensity of the sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface. The intensity of the sunlight can cause either warming (for stronger solar intensity) or cooling (for weaker solar intensity). According to NASA research, reduced solar activity from the 1400s to the 1700s was likely a key factor in the “Little Ice Age” which resulted in a slight cooling of North America, Europe and probably other areas around the globe.
Volcanic eruptions: Volcanoes can affect the climate because they can emit aerosols and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Aerosol emissions: Volcanic aerosols tend to block sunlight and contribute to short term cooling. Aerosols do not produce long-term change because they leave the atmosphere not long after they are emitted. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the eruption of the Tambora Volcano in Indonesia in 1815 lowered global temperatures by as much as 5ºF and historical accounts in New England describe 1815 as “the year without a summer.”
Carbon dioxide emissions: Volcanoes also emit carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, which has a warming effect. For about two-thirds of the last 400 million years, geologic evidence suggests CO2 levels and temperatures were considerably higher than present. One theory is that volcanic eruptions from rapid sea floor spreading elevated CO2 concentrations, enhancing the greenhouse effect and raising temperatures. However, the evidence for this theory is not conclusive and there are alternative explanations for historic CO2 levels (NRC, 2005). While volcanoes may have raised pre-historic CO2 levels and temperatures, according to the USGS Volcano Hazards Program, human activities now emit 150 times as much CO2 as volcanoes (whose emissions are relatively modest compared to some earlier times).
These climate change “drivers” often trigger additional changes or “feedbacks” within the climate system that can amplify or dampen the climate's initial response to them (whether the response is warming or cooling). For example:
Changes in greenhouse gas concentrations: The heating or cooling of the Earth's surface can cause changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. For example, when global temperatures become warmer, carbon dioxide is released from the oceans. When changes in the Earth's orbit trigger a warm (or interglacial) period, increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide may amplify the warming by enhancing the greenhouse effect. When temperatures become cooler, CO2 enters the ocean and contributes to additional cooling. During at least the last 420,000 years, CO2 levels have tended to track the glacial cycles (IPCC, 2001). That is, during warm interglacial periods, CO2 levels have been high and during cool glacial periods, CO2 levels have been low.
Changes in ocean currents: The heating or cooling of the Earth's surface can cause changes in ocean currents. Because ocean currents play a significant role in distributing heat around the Earth, changes in these currents can bring about significant changes in climate from region to region.
Studies of the Earth's previous climate suggest periods of stability as well as periods of rapid change. Recent climate research suggests: Interglacial climates (such as the present) tend to be more stable than cooler, glacial climates. For example, the climate during the current and previous interglacials (known as the Holocene and Eemian interglacials) has been more stable than the most recent glacial period (known as the Last Glacial Maximum). This glacial period was characterized by a long string of widespread, large and abrupt climate changes (NRC, 2002).
Abrupt or rapid climate changes tend to frequently accompany transitions between glacial and interglacial periods (and vice versa). For example, a significant part of the Northern Hemisphere (particularly around Greenland ) may have experienced warming rates as large as 16ºF in 50 years at the end of the Younger Dryas event 11,500 years ago as the planet was emerging from the last ice age (IPCC, 2001).
While abrupt climate changes have occurred throughout the Earth's history, human civilization arose during a period of relative climate stability.
During the last 2,000 years, the climate has been relatively stable. Scientists have identified two minor departures from this stability, known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly (also referred to as the Medieval Warm Period) and the Little Ice Age:
The Medieval Climate Anomaly: Between roughly 900 and 1300 AD, evidence suggests Europe, Greenland and Asia experienced relative warmth. While historical accounts and other evidence document the warmth that occurred in some regions, the geographical extent, magnitude and timing of the warmth during this period is uncertain (NRC, 2006). The American West experienced very dry conditions around this time.
The Little Ice Age: A wide variety of evidence supports the global existence of a "Little Ice Age" (this was not a true "ice age" since major ice sheets did not develop) between about 1500 and 1850 (NRC, 2006). Average temperatures were possibly up to 2ºF colder than today, but varied by region. Together, these two periods define the upper and lower boundaries of the climate's recent natural variability and are a reflection of changes in climate drivers (the sun's variability and volcanic activity) and the climate's internal variability (referring to random changes in the circulation of the atmosphere and oceans). The issue of whether the temperature rise of the 20th century crossed over the warm limit of the boundary has been a controversial topic in the science community. The National Academy of Sciences recently completed a study to assess the efforts to reconstruct temperatures of the past one to two millennia and place the Earth's current warming in historical context (NRC, 2006).
(NRC, 2006): While it is true that there is a high level of confidence that the global average temperature during the last few decades was warmer than any comparable period during the last 400 years, and present evidence suggests that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than any period of comparable length since A.D. 900; uncertainties associated with this statement increase substantially backward in time.
Very little confidence can be assigned to estimates of hemisphere average or global average temperature prior to A.D. 900 due to limited data coverage and challenges in analyzing older data.
References
IPCC, 2001: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Houghton, J.T., Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. van der Linden, X. Dai, K. Maskell, and C.A. Johnson (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge , United Kingdom and New York , NY , USA , 881pp.
National Research Council (NRC), 2002: Abrupt Climate Change, Inevitable Surprises. National Academy Press, Washington , DC . National Academy Press, Washington , DC
National Research Council (NRC), 2005: Radiative Forcing of Climate Change. National Academy Press, Washington , DC . National Academy Press, Washington , DC
National Research Council (NRC), 2006. Surface Temperature Reconstructions For the Last 2,000 Years. National Academy Press, Washington , DC .
Ann Coulter said it best - Al Gore has the world's largest carbon butt-print.
Gore should thank his lucky stars that eugenics was discarded before someone rightfully tied his pop's tubes.
It's happening...
A Pole has moved in next door.
We get along fine.
BUMP!
Al can thank his lucky stars that line of thinking no longer holds sway.
So what's Britney Spears up to these days?
No Mage of the Global Warming Temple would ever, ever be called to account in such a manor.
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