Photo ©2002 Anthony Benoit
Global Warming: Nothing but HOT AIR ?!
By Sally Derusha
I read an editorial in The Day on June 6, 2002, where Cal Thomas, a syndicated columnist lambasted the idea that global warming is caused in part by the burning of fossil fuel. He referenced a web site, http://www.co2science.org/, run by an organization called the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. Even though I hadn’t the knowledge I do now on the function of atmosphere and the factors that contribute to the "greenhouse effect", I saved it. Why? I don’t know…until I read early on in the text about "junk science" as opposed to sound science. I immediately thought of that article! Wright and Nebel sighted an example of junk science: A nationally prominent scientist sent a mailing to over 10,000 U.S. scientists inviting them to sign a petition urging U.S. lawmakers to reject the 1997 Kyoto Climate Treaty. The mailing included an article written on what looked like a reprint from the "prestigious" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; the author was a chemist.
Cal Thomas wrote the article out of a concern that an "unannounced" transmission of a climate report to the U.N. stating humans were partly to blame for the Earth’s warming would push "government liberals to further change our lifestyles (smaller and less safe cars, higher gas taxes, etc).
Thomas quoted the president of the Center, Sherwood B. Idso, PhD., who said, "warming hysteria of the past two decades suffers from a host of maladies, including incomplete coverage of the Earth’s surface, ever changing urban heat island effects, and a number of changes in measurement times and techniques. Idso says the U.S. Historical Climatology Network data set (which he claims is the best in the world) agrees with the satellite data and shows essentially no warming since 1930. Thomas goes on to say that the computer model used by the EPA in its report to the U.N. is "based, in part, on the one used by Clinton administration and the Hadley Centre in England, where the model came from, warned that the data from it was unreliable.
OK now to be a sleuth. On investigation, here’s what I found…
Cal Thomas
Christian Zionist, conservative, most widely syndicated op-ed columnist in America (according to him).
A quote by him from www.jewishworldreview.com:
Gore continues to cling to the creed of his fellow Earth-worshippers that the unproved theory of global warming will vaporize us all unless government steps in and forces us to reshape our lives and lifestyles. Under Gore, we'd trade in our SUVs for the transportation equivalent of Yugos. Unemployed people could be absorbed into environment-related positions that would promote the secular dirt gods with the zeal of Buddhist temple fund-raisers.
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| Exit Glacier in Alaska has melted significantly in the last 25 years. Just a theory? Photo ©2002 Anthony Benoit |
Another quote from him in The Holland Sentinal http://www.thehollandsentinel.net/stories/121697/opn_kyoto.html:
Before we commit ourselves to drastically altering our lifestyles and spending huge amounts of money, we had better be certain that ''global warming'' is more than a theory. So far, it is unsubstantiated by the facts. Much of the mainstream press have misplaced faith in government's ability to deliver us from evil. When it comes to ''global warming,'' their version of the ''great Satan,'' they are as much fundamentalist zealots as those TV evangelists they like to mock.
The real hot air in this mostly one-sided debate is coming from the politicians and the big media. If we manage to cool them off, we can harness the government monster they help to sustain and take more control over our lives, our money and our future.
Sherwood B. Idso, PhD
One of 46 scientists listed in http://www.geocities.com/abcolombo/sep00/092200f.htm who don’t believe in Global Warming and their statement, http://www.geocities.com/abcolombo/sep00/092200e.htm
In his co2 science magazine, he documents the overwhelmingly positive effects of higher co2 concentrations both for human health and for ecosystem diversity, one of which is an increase is shown in concentrations of vitamins A and C in various fruits and vegetables. http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/health_effects_of_co2.htm
A Global Warming Petition Project of which Idso was one of the signers http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p344.htm. The following is the Petition Project’s Summary taken from its web site, http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm:
World leaders gathered in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 to consider a world treaty restricting emissions of ''greenhouse gases,'' chiefly carbon dioxide (CO2), that are thought to cause ''global warming'' severe increases in Earth's atmospheric and surface temperatures, with disastrous environmental consequences. Predictions of global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy. The empirical evidence actual measurements of Earth's temperature shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, over the past two decades, when CO2 levels have been at their highest, global average temperatures have actually cooled slightly.
To be sure, CO2 levels have increased substantially since the Industrial Revolution, and are expected to continue doing so. It is reasonable to believe that humans have been responsible for much of this increase. But the effect on the environment is likely to be benign. Greenhouse gases cause plant life, and the animal life that depends upon it, to thrive. What mankind is doing is liberating carbon from beneath the Earth's surface and putting it into the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion into living organisms.
The prominent U.S. scientist who wrote the letter
Frederick Seitz, Past President, National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A.
President Emeritus, Rockefeller University. (http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm)
This site offers a pdf version of the eight page article and a slide show version of the figures and graphs.
The chemists who wrote the article
Arthur B. Robinson, Sallie L. Baliunas, Willie Soon, And Zachary W. Robinson
Bottom line, I think they distort the evidence for global warming and it is definitely politically motivated.
Submitted to and posted by Anthony Benoit
May 4, 2003
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