So where does this leave us today? The faulty science described above and false statements inserted by Ben Santer in the IPCC report have become the mantra of the environmental activists, Green Peace socialists, and political opportunists in the UN. It has become the conventional wisdom believed by a large segment of the U.S. population and the rallying cry for U.S. politicians choosing to demagogue on global warming. There primary goal is to reign in the U.S. economy and to reduce the standard of living for all developed nations in the world with the U.S. population bearing the brunt of this downscaling of the world economy.
The simple fact is the earth’s climate has always been erratic with cooling and warming trends throughout its history. Often, climate changes have been abrupt and do not follow the stable trend lines presented in computer models. Within the last 2,000 years of recorded history, there have been two world warming periods that exceed by several degrees that which has been experienced since 1850. These warming periods had nothing to do with greenhouse gases released by human activity. Clearly, something else was and continues to be at work in our climate. There are other scientific theories, which try to explain these cooling and warming occurrences on earth including the solar activity model. The simple fact is we do not know enough about what causes changes in our climate to create computer models that can model all of the climate data that is available.
Why are we fixated on global warming? Because it is occurring and we humans have a need to try and understand everything in the physical world around us. This is one of our human traits that has made us so successful. Whether it is black holes, time/space continuum, the big bang theory or natural selection, we humans have a need to know and to hypothesize what we don’t know. These are all theories, some better than others. Some will be replaced by new theories as our knowledge expands and continues to grow.
As with all theories the best tack to take is patience. Time is on our side. It will become clearer that the greenhouse gas theory of global warming is seriously flawed. Already, it has become clear that in order to comply with the Phase I of the Kyoto Protocol, the economic impact on the developed world would have been severe with the supporters of the treaty acknowledging that the potential improvement would be less than 0.1° C by 2050. One volcanic eruption can do 10 times this in one year.
The second phase of the treaty would have required the U.S. to reduce its fossil fuel usage by over 60% from 1990 levels. This would require us to essentially end the use of all fossil fuels including oil, coal and gas. The only replacements that environmental activists and like minded politicians would allow would be wind and solar power. Neither of which can be scaled to the levels we would need in the next 50 years.
Imagine explaining to a room full of high school student who just saw Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth that they can begin their part in saving our world by not being driven to school by their parents, nor driving a car or riding a bus, just walk to school. Turn off the air conditioning, the lights and their cell phones and learn to live without them. That way, less fossil fuels are expended and fewer greenhouse gases released. This is just the beginning of complying with the world according to Al Gore. I give them one day, maybe two at the most before their idealism and self guilt are replaced by their rationalizing global warming as a natural occurrence. So much for global warming, bring it on, we love it!