Global Warming: Top 10 Myths
Global warming is NOT science. It is an extreme political
view that is as far from the scientific method as Aristotle was
from it.
MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at
a rapid, unprecedented rate.
FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain
top observations made over the last three decades have not shown
any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global
temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild
warming of 0.6 to 0.8Cover the last 100 years, which is well within
the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground
station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the
globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and
industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher
readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").
There has been no catastrophic warming
recorded.
MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves
that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature
increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
FACT: Significant changes in climate have
continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the
Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings
farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little
Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global
temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned
above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped,
leading to a Global Cooling scare.
The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and
Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded
climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and
statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a
faulty one at that.
MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has
increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect,
thus warming the earth.
FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed
changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have
throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial
revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has
increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased
from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per
year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years.
However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver
of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many
thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER
the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE
CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments
confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as
temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through
solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming
surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a
result.
MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common
greenhouse gas.
FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of
the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about
97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases
like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of
which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2
constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases
are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapour and
clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer
volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of
the "Greenhouse effect".
Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention
this important fact.
MYTH 5: Computer models verify that
CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.
FACT: Computer models can be made to
"verify" anything by changing some of the 5 million input
parameters or any of a multitude of negative and positive feedbacks
in the program used.. They do not "prove" anything. Also, computer
models predicting global warming are incapable of properly
including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The
sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface
as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens
largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of
sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures
on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period.
Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface
temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water
expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes
with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized
nuclei which control cloud cover.
MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made
CO2 causes global warming.
FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on
global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft.
Here they are:
- “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence
that we can attribute the observed climate changes to
increases in greenhouse gases.”
- “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the
climate change to man–made causes”
To the present day there is still no scientific proof that
man-made CO2 causes significant global
warming.
MYTH 7: CO2 is a
pollutant.
FACT: This is absolutely not true.
Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100%
nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than
nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It
is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake
as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many
trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the
Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number
of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental
Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.
MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms
and other weather extremes.
FACT: There is no scientific or
statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a
global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing
insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal
areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing
frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a
function of increasing population density, escalating development
value, and ever more media reporting.
MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving
of ice shelves are proof of global warming.
FACT:
Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for
hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of
coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice
shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at
least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s
normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on
precipitation as on temperature.
MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming;
polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level
rising.
FACT: The earth is variable. The western
Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic
events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland
are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is
getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually
cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in
Antarctica.
Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans
(Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.
The
Great Global Warming Swindle - A
must see video!
|