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6/21/2007
The globe is warming, the globe is warming!
Oh no, oh no. The globe is warming! Charlie Sykes talked about this for a few minutes on his show the other day because an 87 year-old UW professor emeritus says the global warming theory is a bunch of bunk. A great article in the Cap Times features Reid Bryson, “father of scientific climatology” explaining that we’ve been coming out of a Little Ice Age for 300 years, hence the continued warming. Bryson says too that yes, the globe is warming and yes, humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, “but the effect [from humans on warming] is tiny.”
Pretty critical point, I’d say.
A brief discussion between two CATO research fellows last month broke down the global warming issue into two distinct issues, somewhat differently than wise Professor Bryson. The discussion between Mark Moller and Pat Michaels centered around a recent appellate court ruling that essentially told the EPA it can regulate greenhouse gases (not that it has to) and that one of those greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide. The self-same stuff trees breath in and we humans breath out.
In their closing statement, Pat Michaels noted that the “consensus among scientists is that the planet is warmer and human beings have something to do with that with regard to surface temperatures. Unfortunately, the rhetoric of the argument then escalates that simple observation into a notion of imminent disaster which really does not have support in the scientific literature.”
Ok, each of these experts divide global warming research into two distinct discussions.
Professor Bryson tells us to separate the global warming argument into these two discussions:
1. The globe is warming.
2. The impact of humans and human activity on this global warming is “tiny.”
And Pat Michaels, CATO, tells us the same thing – but using two slightly different pieces:
1. Surface temperatures are rising and humans have something to do with that.
2. Global warming science does not support translating rising surface temperatures into imminent disaster and Greenland falling into the ocean.
Two competent scientists. Two ways to separate the global warming arguments. Two arguments that both say we need be very careful when asked to spend huge amounts of capital to reverse global warming. Nice to have some bright guys on the side of reason once in a while….
P.S.: FoxPolitics reader Dick Kendall suggests a good read: Global Warming Skepticism, by Dennis Behreandt (The New American, March 7, 2007).
COMMENTS
There was a time when, in a reasoned way, eminent scientists had us all convinced that the earth was flat. Their view was supported by the church, who just recently apologized,for their error. Unfortunately the apology came three hundred years to late! :o)
Bob Pedersen (Thu Jun 21 07:12:48 2007)
Let's see: Charlie Sykes, the CATO Institute and the John Birch Society. That's 3 sources I definitely want to get my science from. Not.
Jo, I think you'll be on better, firmer and more logical ground if Foxpolitics is about Fox Politics.
I take your Fox Politics point Lon, but reserve the right to occasionally raise issues of import to all Americans. I take your point about global warming science as well. You're right about that - the science is extensive and I've captured a piece of it. JE
Lon Ponschock (Thu Jun 21 12:23:21 2007)
Hey Jo. Nice article. I myself am of "many minds" when it comes to this particular issue.
The "science" being what it is, with so many diverging viewpoints from credible sources on both sides, I think that it is safe to say that we just "don't know jack" about this issue.
Call me a "cynic" a "deny-er" or whatever, but it is hard to ignore the fact that the proposed solutions to this alleged crisis just happen to be everything the left has ALWAYS wanted in every other regard.
Taxes,Punishment,Obedience,and Silence.
Very convenient.....
I love it.... JE
Daniel Braun (Thu Jun 21 14:27:18 2007)
Global warming, or abrupt climate change, as it now is called, has aroused more hysteria than it's been my pleasure to behold since the days of the Beatles.
When I first heard this theory I mulled it over for awhile and came up with a question.
If "global warming" is exacerbated in any meaningful way by Man, what caused the glaciers to withdraw, when by all accounts, there were no men with any kind of technology around to occasion this withdrawal?
That said, there have been periods of cooling and warming throughout the history of the earth. For most of my lifetime I thought this was caused by solar activity. Nothing has proved to me that it's anything else, computer models notwithstanding. This could very well be a case of GIGO.
C.R. Stevenson (Fri Jun 22 08:48:45 2007)
Jo --- I don't think Bryson said that the impact of global warming was tiny. I think he said that human causation of global warming was tiny. I'll read it again.
The words Bryson used are: "Humans are polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but the effect is tiny." JE
Glenn (Fri Jun 22 16:43:55 2007)
See the article in the Capital Times of 6/30/07 for a more realistic review of Bryson's work.
Article featured in today's FoxPolitics News. JE
Ron Tank (Mon Jul 02 10:44:02 2007)
The positive result of Al Gore's movie is that people are finally talking about this issue from more than one point of view. A big danger of this doomsday groupthink is that it threatens to divert resources and effort away from things we really can act on like malaria eradication, real truth about DDT & its benefits, third world debt-forgiveness and other solutions etc. Michael Crichton and Bjorn Lomborg among many have advocated this caution. Search their work. It's sober and refreshing (Neither won an Oscar). And parents, make sure to get in your kids' school reading. I teach and am appalled at the one-sidedness of texts on this issue. --bk
Stimulating, effective, credible group of arguments. Good. Thanks. JE
brady kiel (Thu Jun 28 22:54:52 2007)
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