The most recent act of skepticism – or should I say heresy given the zealotry exhibited by the global warming alarmists – came in the form of an op-ed written by Philip Stott, an Emeritus Professor from the University of London who is almost guaranteed to receive hateful and possibly threatening e-mail messages for his unwelcome contribution to this so-called debate.
Stott began his article with a marvelous historical and religious reference that should – but, likely won’t – act as a wakeup call for those on the left and in the media now claiming that this matter has become a moral issue (emphasis mine throughout):
From the Babylon of Gilgamesh to the post-Eden of Noah, every age has viewed climate change cataclysmically, as retribution for human greed and sinfulness.
In the 1970s, the fear was "global cooling." The Christian Science Monitor then declaimed, "Warning: Earth's climate is changing faster than even experts expect," while The New York Times announced, "A major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable." Sound familiar? Global warming represents the latest doom-laden "crisis," one demanding sacrifice to Gaia for our wicked fossil-fuel-driven ways.
But neither history nor science bolsters such an apocalyptic faith.
Nicely stated. Stott then shared some of the history surrounding this issue that is totally ignored by global warming alarmists:
Extreme weather events are ever present, and there is no evidence of systematic increases. Outside the tropics, variability should decrease in a warmer world. If this is a "crisis," then the world is in permanent "crisis," but will be less prone to "crisis" with warming.
Sea levels have been rising since the end of the last ice age, most rapidly about 12,000 years ago. In recent centuries, the average rate has been relatively uniform. The rate was higher during the first half of the 20th century than during the second. At around a couple of millimeters per year, it is a residual of much larger positive and negative changes locally. The risk from global warming is less than that from other factors (primarily geological).
Stott then debunked all the hysterical claims by the alarmists about the risks to the planet for inaction:
The impact on agriculture is equivocal. India warmed during the second half of the 20th century, yet agricultural output increased markedly. The impact on disease is dubious. Infectious diseases, like malaria, are not so much a matter of temperature as of poverty and public health. Malaria remains endemic in Siberia, and was once so in Michigan and Europe. Exposure to cold is generally more dangerous.
Next on the hit parade was the notion spread by the alarmists that CO2 is a problem:
So, does the claim that humans are the primary cause of recent warming imply "crisis"? The impact on temperature per unit CO2 goes down, not up, with increasing CO2. The role of human-induced greenhouse gases does not relate directly to emission rate, nor even to CO2 levels, but rather to the radiative (or greenhouse) impact. Doubling CO2 is a convenient benchmark. It is claimed, on the basis of computer models, that this should lead to 1.1 - 6.4 C warming.
What is rarely noted is that we are already three-quarters of the way into this in terms of radiative forcing, but we have only witnessed a 0.6 (+/-0.2) C rise, and there is no reason to suppose that all of this is due to humans.
Indeed the system requires no external driver to fluctuate by a fraction of a degree because of ocean disequilibrium with the atmosphere. There are also alternative drivers relating to cosmic rays, the sun, water vapor and clouds. Moreover, it is worth remembering that modelers even find it difficult to account for the medieval warm period.
Stott then wonderfully countered the recent call to arms for immediate action while elaborating on how the left and the media have completely missed the true moral dilemma inherent in this so-called crisis:
But does it matter if global warming is a "crisis" or not? Aren't we threatened by a serious temperature rise? Shouldn't we act anyway, because we are stewards of the environment?
Herein lies the moral danger behind global warming hysteria. Each day, 20,000 people in the world die of waterborne diseases. Half a billion people go hungry. A child is orphaned by AIDS every seven seconds. This does not have to happen. We allow it while fretting about "saving the planet." What is wrong with us that we downplay this human misery before our eyes and focus on events that will probably not happen even a hundred years hence? We know that the greatest cause of environmental degradation is poverty; on this, we can and must act.
Somehow, that all has been disgracefully lost in the debate as the media and the left push forward with their advancement of junk science supposedly in the name of morality even though any impartial observer with a room temperature intelligence quotient can spot the politics and financial opportunism from a thousand miles away. Regardless, Stott was crescendoing to a spectacular conclusion:
The global warming "crisis" is misguided. In hubristically seeking to "control" climate, we foolishly abandon age-old adaptations to inexorable change. There is no way we can predictably manage this most complex of coupled, nonlinear chaotic systems. The inconvenient truth is that "doing something" (emitting gases) at the margins and "not doing something" (not emitting gases) are equally unpredictable.
Climate change is a norm, not an exception. It is both an opportunity and a challenge. The real crises for 4 billion people in the world remain poverty, dirty water and the lack of a modern energy supply. By contrast, global warming represents an ecochondria of the pampered rich.
We can no longer afford to cling to the anti-human doctrines of outdated environmentalist thinking. The "crisis" is the global warming political agenda, not climate change.
Bravo. Author! Author!
