
"Our young people have a universal negative view of the
future. They don't have the accumulated life experiences
to put the environmental predictions of doom into proper
perspective." (Editor)
Contents
Summary
There are scientists with different views on the climate
change 'debate'.
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We are heading towards an ice-age
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Read this article on the
impending ice age
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The sun is causing the warming
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Read this article on
simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars
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The earth is warming caused by mans' activities
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The majority of news items follow this line
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Climate change has become a religion
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Read this article how
climate change has become a religion
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No warming for 17 years despite CO2 levels
rising.
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Read this article -
No global warming occuring
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Seventeen thousand scientists (half of whom are
trained in physics, geophysics, climate science,
meteorology, oceanography, chemistry, biology or
biochemistry) recently signed a petition written by
Frederick Seitz, a past president of the National
Academy of Sciences, declaring that there is no
compelling evidence to justify reducing greenhouse
gas emissions at all. (26)
The only thing we can say for sure is that nothing is
certain - despite the media continually presenting only
one side of the argument
Global Warming
There are three methods used for measuring the
temperature of the earth:
- Satellite measurements of the lower atmosphere
(accurate to 0,01 degree - able to measure the
temperature increase caused by the moon shining on the
earth!)
- Measuring sondes carried through the atmosphere by
weather balloons
- Measurements at established weather stations (source
of television temperature data)
Satellites
and balloon sondes give the same results and both show
extremely small if any increase in the earth's
temperature.
Surface readings however, show a large increase in
temperature in the last 100 years, mainly as a result of
urbanization effects that encroach on weather stations
and change locally the physical environment where the
temperature is recorded. (the photo shows a car park
acting as a heat sink surrounding a weather station.
Building development would also affect the prevailing
breezes)
Conclusion: One of the fundamental concepts that global
warming is based on (observable rising temperatures on
earth) isn't backed up by all the available evidence -
only selective evidence!
Read a full report about temperature measurement:
‘Global Mean
Temperature’ and how it is determined at surface
level"
The Kyoto Protocol
How often have you heard in the media that we could fix
the environmental effects of CO 2if only
USA would join in with the Kyoto Protocol?
If every country participated in the protocol, the level
of CO 2in the atmosphere in 100 years time
would rise to 190% of what it is now. Without Kyoto it is
predicted to be 200% higher. Many large polluting
non-developed nations are exempt from complying with the
Protocol, therefore the best that could be expected is
maybe 195% of present levels. (23)
Killing the coal industry to reduce temperatures 1/7th of
1 degree 50 years hence is justified by treaty advocates
as a necessary "first step" of about 30 that must
necessarily come. Treaty opponents do a quick
cost/benefit analysis and conclude that treaty supporters
have lost their grip on reality. (26)
Apart from the misleading public debate, the case for the
Kyoto Protocol is pretty threadbare. If the past is any
prologue, the case for ratification will continue to
weaken. (26)
While the Kyoto Protocol envisions significant cuts in
greenhouse gas emissions, scientists on all sides of the
debate agree that its impact will be virtually
undetectable. (26)
Further reading: "Latest Science Debunks Global
Warming Hysteria"
Is CO 2really a problem?
The main absorbers of infrared in the atmosphere
(greenhouse effect) are water vapor and clouds. Even if
all other greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide and
methane) were to disappear, we would still be left with
over 98 percent of the current greenhouse effect.
Nevertheless, it is presumed that increases in carbon
dioxide and other minor greenhouse gases will lead to
significant increases in temperature. (27)
It should be noted that for much of the Earth's history,
the atmosphere had much more carbon dioxide than is
currently anticipated for centuries to come.
(27)
Evidence from the analysis of ice cores and after 1958
from direct atmospheric sampling shows that the amount of
carbon dioxide in the air has been increasing since 1800.
Before 1800 the density was about 275 parts per million
by volume. Today it is about 355 parts per million by
volume. The total source is estimated to have been
increasing exponentially at least until 1973. From 1973
until 1990 the rate of increase has been much slower,
however. (27)
Conclusion:
-
Evidence shows that CO 2has gradually
been increasing
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True
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The level of CO 2has been much higher in
the past than it is today
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True
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The increase in CO 2aligns closely with
industrialization
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False
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Increasing CO 2means much higher global
temperatures
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False
The earth won't last forever!
We are using resources at a rate that can't be sustained.
Since the earth only has finite resources, it is true,
they must be exhausted sooner or later.
The important question is: Does it really matter?
The Bible is very clear that Jesus is returning to Earth
and it seems not too far into the future. After that the
earth is to be of no further use! The resources of the
Earth don't have to last forever!!
Conclusion:
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Do we plunder the resources we have left?
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No
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Do we fear about the future?
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No
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Do we trust in God to supply all our needs as he has
promised?
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Yes
How did the greenhouse hysteria begin?
The present hysteria formally began in the summer of
1988, although preparations had been put in place at
least three years earlier. That was an especially warm
summer in some regions, particularly in the United
States. The abrupt increase in temperature in the late
1970s was too abrupt to be associated with the smooth
increase in carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, James Hansen,
director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in
testimony before Sen. Al Gore's Committee on Science,
Technology and Space, said, in effect, that he was 99
percent certain that temperature had increased and that
there was some greenhouse warming. He made no statement
concerning the relation between the two.
(27)
Despite the fact that those remarks were virtually
meaningless, they led the environmental advocacy movement
to adopt the issue immediately. The growth of
environmental advocacy since the 1970s has been
phenomenal. In Europe the movement centered on the
formation of Green parties; in the United States the
movement centered on the development of large public
interest advocacy groups. Those lobbying groups have
budgets of several hundred million dollars and employ
about 50,000 people; their support is highly valued by
many political figures. As with any large groups,
self-perpetuation becomes a crucial concern. "Global
warming'' has become one of the major battle cries in
their fund raising efforts. At the same time, the media
unquestioningly accept the pronouncements of those groups
as objective truth. (27)
Other scientists quickly agreed that with increasing
carbon dioxide some warming might be expected and that
with large enough concentrations of carbon dioxide the
warming might be significant. Nevertheless, there was
widespread skepticism. By early 1989, however, the
popular media in Europe and the United States were
declaring that "all scientists'' agreed that warming was
real and catastrophic in its potential. (27)
In the meantime, the global warming circus was in full
swing. Meetings were going on nonstop. One of the more
striking of those meetings was hosted in the summer of
1989 by Robert Redford (a film star) at his ranch in
Sundance, Utah. Redford proclaimed that it was time to
stop research and begin acting. I suppose that that was a
reasonable suggestion for an actor to make, but it is
also indicative of the overall attitude toward science.
Barbara Streisand personally undertook to support the
research of Michael Oppenheimer at the Environmental
Defense Fund, although he is primarily an advocate and
not a climatologist. Meryl Streep made an appeal on
public television to stop warming. A bill was even
prepared to guarantee Americans a stable climate.
(27)
Claudine Schneider, then a congressman from Rhode Island,
acknowledged that "scientists may disagree, but we can
hear Mother Earth, and she is crying.'' It seemed clear
to me that a very dangerous situation was arising, and
the danger was not of "global warming'' itself.
(27)
Further reading: "Latest Science Debunks environmental
hysteria (about 1/3 through from the top of the
article)
Why don't we hear much about the opposite view?
As most scientists concerned with climate, I was eager to
stay out of what seemed like a public circus. But in the
summer of 1988 Lester Lave, a professor of economics at
Carnegie Mellon University, wrote to me about being
dismissed from a Senate hearing for suggesting that the
issue of global warming was scientifically controversial.
I assured him that the issue was not only controversial
but also unlikely. In the winter of 1989 Reginald Newell,
a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, lost National Science Foundation funding
for data analyzes that were failing to show net warming
over the past century. Reviewers suggested that his
results were dangerous to humanity. In the spring of 1989
I was an invited participant at a global warming
symposium at Tufts University. I was the only scientist
among a panel of environmentalists. There were strident
calls for immediate action and ample expressions of
impatience with science. (27)
By the fall of 1989 some media were becoming aware that
there was controversy (Forbes and Reader's Digest were
notable in that regard). Cries followed from
environmentalists that skeptics were receiving excessive
exposure. The publication of my paper was followed by a
determined effort on the part of the editor of the
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Richard
Hallgren, to solicit rebuttals. Such articles were
prepared by Stephen Schneider and Will Kellogg, a minor
scientific administrator for the past thirty years.
(27)
Outside the world of meteorology, Greenpeace's Jeremy
Legett, a geologist by training, published a book
attacking critics of warming---especially me. George
Mitchell, Senate majority leader and father of a
prominent environmental activist, also published a book
urging acceptance of the warming problem (World on Fire:
Saving an Endangered Earth). Sen. Gore recently published
a book (Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human
Spirit). Those are just a few examples of the rapidly
growing publications on warming. Rarely has such meager
science provoked such an outpouring of popularization by
individuals who do not understand the subject in the
first place. (27)
The activities of the Union of Concerned Scientists
deserve special mention. That widely supported
organization was originally devoted to nuclear
disarmament. As the cold war began to end, the group
began to actively oppose nuclear power generation. Their
position was unpopular with many physicists. Over the
past few years, the organization has turned to the battle
against global warming in a particularly hysterical
manner. In 1989 the group began to circulate a petition
urging recognition of global warming as potentially the
great danger to mankind. Most recipients who did not sign
were solicited at least twice more. The petition was
eventually signed by 700 scientists including a great
many members of the National Academy of Sciences and
Nobel laureates. Only about three or four of the signers,
however, had any involvement in climatology.
Interestingly, the petition had two pages, and on the
second page there was a call for renewed consideration of
nuclear power. When the petition was published in the New
York Times, however, the second page was omitted. In any
event, that document helped solidify the public
perception that "all scientists'' agreed with the
disaster scenario. Such a disturbing abuse of scientific
authority was not unnoticed. At the 1990 annual meeting
of the National Academy of Sciences, Frank Press, the
academy's president, warned the membership against
lending their credibility to issues about which they had
no special knowledge. Special reference was made to the
published petition. (27)
At the same time, political pressures on dissidents from
the "popular vision'' increased. Sen. Gore publicly
admonished "skeptics'' in a lengthy New York Times op-ed
piece. In a perverse example of double-speak he
associated the "true believers'' in warming with Galileo.
He also referred, in another article, to the summer of
1988 as the Kristallnacht before the warming holocaust.
(27)
In addition, a number of the participants have testified
to the pressures placed on them to emphasize results
supportive of the current scenario and to suppress other
results. That pressure has frequently been effective, and
a survey of participants reveals substantial disagreement
with the final report they were involved with.
(27)
Perhaps more important are the pressures being brought to
bear on scientists to get the "right" results. Such
pressures are inevitable, given how far out on a limb
much of the scientific community has gone.
(27)
I should add that as ever greater numbers of individuals
attach themselves to the warming problem, the pressures
against solving the problem grow proportionally; an
inordinate number of individuals and groups depend on the
problem's remaining. (27)
Read the whole report about the environmental
'one sided' reporting
If it is not true, how does the story keep going?
Public perceptions, under the influence of extensive,
deceptive, and one-sided publicity, can become
disconnected from reality. For example, Alabama has had a
pronounced cooling trend since 1935. Nevertheless, a poll
among professionals in Alabama found that about 95
percent of the participants believed that the climate had
been warming over the past fifty years and that the
warming was due to the greenhouse effect. Public
misconceptions coupled with a sincere desire to "save the
planet'' can force political action even when politicians
are aware of the reality. (27)
What the above amounts to is a societal instability. At a
particular point in history, a relatively minor
suggestion or event serves to mobilize massive interests.
. (27)
In the past, the same destructive scenario occurred in
Nazi Germany under Hitler's reign. Hitler announced that
the cause of Germany's problems was the Jews. He repeated
it enough that people believed it to be true. Without any
factual basis, the repetition made it truth. The common
people then became party to the senseless slaughter of
millions of Jews because, as a nation, they believed
statements that had no factual basis!
What can I do about it?
For our young people - give them a
balanced view and some skills to handle this hysteria.
On a personal level - people often tend to grab onto
causes in a subconscious way to cancel the background
anxiety and inherent fear of the future and of the
unknown. The lack of factual basis doesn't matter, since,
to the individual the focused action to a cause feels
like a positive counter attack toward the fears we all
tend to have about the future.
The only way to effectively deal with the fear of the
future and our own mortality is to give your life over to
Jesus Christ. He has a plan for every life! He is the
only one who gives hope now and beyond the grave! He is
the only way to effectively face your mortality (your
death).
More information about how to " Get it
right with God"
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