http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/climate-change-issues-for-2012?f=puball
Prepared by the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, summarizing current knowledge on climate
1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it has been rising steadily. How can you deny global warming?
The Earth has warmed – and cooled – over the past 50 years. We’ve also experienced periods of “unusual” weather and “normal” weather, more frequent and intense storms and droughts, less frequent and less severe storms and droughts. That’s natural and cyclical. However, we don’t agree that humans are responsible, or that climate change is becoming dangerous or catastrophic.
CO2 is a trace gas, but without it life on earth would be impossible. Carbon dioxide fertilizes algae, trees and crops, to provide food for humans and animals. We inhale oxygen and exhale CO2. Slightly higher atmospheric CO2 levels (390 ppm or 0.039% of the atmosphere at present) cannot possibly supplant the numerous complex and inter-connected forces that have always determined Earth’s climate.
As University of London professor emeritus Philip Stott has noted: “The fundamental point has always been this. Climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one politically-selected factor (CO2), is as misguided as it gets.” Carbon dioxide is not the tail that wags the dog. Even the global warming activists at RealClimate.org acknowledged this in a September 20, 2008 article, which said, “The actual temperature rise is an emergent property resulting from interactions among hundreds of factors.”
2) Haven’t the past few years have shown global warming to be worse than we thought?
As the real world evidence mounts that global warming claims are failing, climate activists have ramped up predictions of future climate change impacts, declaring that it is “worse than we thought.” But a prediction or projection 50-100 years into the future is not “evidence.” Recent scientific data and developments reveal that Mother Nature is playing a cruel joke on promoters of man-made climate fears. The scientific reality is that on virtually every claim – from A to Z – the claims of manmade climate disaster promoters are failing. In many instances the claims are moving in the opposite direction.
Antarctic sea ice has been at or near record extent during the past few summers and is now expanding. In 2012, Arctic sea ice hit its lowest point since satellite monitoring began in 1979, with recent ebb and flow in ice extent now known to be the result of giant storms, ocean currents and high pressure days. Polar bears are thriving across the Arctic. Sea level rise has not been accelerating.
Cholera and malaria are not related to climate change and refuse to follow global warming predictions. Mount Kilimanjaro melt fears are mocked by gains in snow cover. Global temperatures have been stable for over a decade, and many scientists are predicting global cooling is ahead. Deaths from extreme weather are declining dramatically.
Global tropical cyclone activity is near historic lows, the frequency of major U.S. hurricanes has declined, and big tornados have dramatically declined since the 1970s. In fact, 2012 is thus far the quietest tornado and quietest hurricane summer on record. Even with Hurricane Sandy, November 2012 marks the quietest long-term hurricane period since the Civil War, with one major hurricane strike on the U.S. in seven years. Droughts are not historically unusual nor caused by mankind, and there is no evidence that we are currently having unusual weather.
3) If CO2 is not the main driver of global temperatures, what is? The sun?
When global temperatures are the question, the answer is not the sun or CO2. It is the sun, volcanoes, tilt of the Earth’s axis, water vapor, methane, clouds, ocean cycles, plate tectonics, shifting ocean currents, albedo (Earth’s changing reflective properties), atmospheric dust, atmospheric circulation, cosmic rays, particulates like carbon soot and volcanic dust, forests and grasslands, urban and other land use changes, and numerous other variables. Climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, not just manmade CO2.
4) How can you ignore thousands of scientists who say manmade global warming is a serious threat?
The idea that there is a “scientific consensus” does not hold up. Scientists who are skeptical about “dangerous manmade climate change” have been speaking out for years. Just this year, two prominent former believers in man-made global warming announced they were reconsidering the science. “Gaia” scientist James Lovelock had been “alarmist” about climate change for years. Now he says, “The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.”
German meteorologist Klaus-Eckart Puls also reversed his belief in man-made global warming in 2012 and called the idea of CO2 regulating climate “sheer absurdity.” “Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us,” he said. “One day I started checking the facts and data. First I started with a sense of doubt, but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements. To this day, I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.”
In 2010, a report documented that “More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissented Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims.” Many of them were former IPCC scientists. Climate scientist Mike Hulme dismantled the “thousands of scientists agree” claim put forth by the United Nations and news media. Claims that “2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate” are disingenuous, Hulme noted. The key scientific case for CO2 driving global warming, like many others in the IPCC reports, “is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields.” Other scientists are excluded or not consulted.
Dr. William Schlesinger agrees with the UN climate view but has admitted that only 20% of UN IPCC scientists deal with climate. In other words, 80% of the UN’s IPCC membership are experts in other fields and have no dealing with or expertise in climate change as part of their academic studies.
