The Global Warming Debate Heats Up

It has been a good seven days for democracy as the great CO2/Global Warming debate moved into new hitherto uncharted territory. The reason for this optimism was a Channel 4 documentary which showed that contrary to popular belief we aren't all going to die from greenhouse gases, no siree, we are going to die because that's what humans do.

Now nobody has so far denied the existence of GW, I mean that would be like denying the existence of night following day and vice versa. After all we only have to look around us to see flowers in bloom, hedgehogs stumbling about the place two months early and grief ridden grass snakes lurking beneath stones in the garden. We've also just had the mildest winter in more than a decade, as I said in a post last month I've scraped frost off the car only three times since October. But even that isn't news, Samuel Pepys was recording climate change in his diary as long ago as the 1600's.

The point is that one bunch of scientists have said that another bunch of scientists are wrong and us being a cynical bunch of so and so's have decided that we'd rather like to believe the new kids in town. And why not? Scientific facts are just that. There's been a phrase around the accountancy profession as long as I can remember which is used to cover our arses when something goes tits up and that's "don't worry, accountancy is an art, not a science." So the claim that only 0.03%-0.06% of the gases in the earth's atmosphere is Co2 is easily verifiable - this is one fact that nobody, as far as I know is going to dispute.

The big question however is how much damage this low concentration of 'greenhouse gases' is doing to us, the planet and everything on it? The answer it would appear is not much. Put it this way, there's more chance of a Tsunami occurring in Java as a result of me farting in my kitchen than there is of global warming being directly attributable to the level of Co2 in the atmosphere.

The earth is warming up because the Sun is getting warmer. So over a period of time, the star that gives us life will kill us off.

That then brings us into conspiracy theory territory. Why are we being told something that can be proved to be wrong? Well you could use the raising of additional taxes as an argument but that doesn't work. Whilst travel may be one of the six human rights contained within the United Nations constitution (food, shelter, clothing, education and employment being the others), nowhere does it say "and behold, you shall have the right to fly to Malaga for £4." No, taxes on flying should be raised for other environmental issues, to stop bigger airports being built for a start by reducing passenger numbers. Taxes raised to pay for more roads? Again no, motorways cost £30 million a mile to build and we just don't have that sort of resource, besides which all the main parties want us to work from home to reduce the number of cars on the road, the Government are actually giving money away in tax incentives to people so that they don't travel by car, you can now get tax relief on that conservatory you've always dreamed of, if you say it's your home office - this has nothing to do with Co2 but the wider environmental concerns we all have.

No, it's all about control. It's about the power to control information, the access to relevant information, the access to natural resources. How can recycling be a good thing when it takes two different lorries to take away rubbish when it only used to take one, if global warming exists?

C.R. de Freitas of the School of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, published an article in the June 2002 issue of the Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology. Its focus is the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content and what the consequences of that phenomenon might be for earth's climate and biosphere. In broaching this subject, de Freitas focuses on certain key questions: Is global climate warming? If so, what part of that warming is due to human activities? How good is the evidence? What are the risks? Finding answers to these questions, he says, "is hindered by widespread confusion regarding key facets of global warming science," and it is these several fallacies or misconceptions that he addresses.

Fallacy 1: Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing at alarming rates. It just ain't so, according to de Freitas, who notes that annual CO2 concentration increases appear to be leveling off in recent years. He also wonders what is alarming about the aerial fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment, which dramatically stimulates the growth rates and enhances the water use efficiencies of essentially all of earth's plants.

Fallacy 2: Humans are big players in the global carbon cycle. In reality, says de Freitas, "anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only about 3% of the natural carbon cycle and less than 1% of the atmospheric reservoir of carbon." He also notes that the increase in the air's CO2 content over the past few centuries could well have been the result of earth's oceans giving off the gas in response to the planet's recovery from the Little Ice Age.

Fallacy 3: There is a close relationship between changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature. De Freitas debunks the implied message of this myth, i.e., that it is changes in CO2 that drive changes in temperature, by citing many well-documented cases where just the opposite occurred, over periods ranging from months to millennia, reminding us that correlation does not prove causation and that cause must precede effect.

Fallacy 4: Global temperature has increased over the past two decades. Although data gathered by various types of thermometers do indeed indicate warming in many places over this time period, the concurrent growth of cities and towns, according to numerous scientific studies cited by de Freitas, has increased so dramatically that much - if not all - of that warming may be due to an intensifying of the urban heat island phenomenon.

Fallacy 5: Satellite data support IPCC claims on observed and projected global warming. No way, says de Freitas; climate models predict significant warming of the lower atmosphere, which is not evident in the satellite temperature record. Hence, the only data set that provides a truly global perspective of atmospheric temperature actually provides "direct evidence against the IPCC global warming hypothesis."

Fallacy 6: Global climate trends during the past century are very unlike those of the past. This highly-heralded falsehood is soundly refuted by de Freitas, who cites the results of a host of scientific studies that demonstrate the warming of the past century is but the most recent phase of a natural climatic oscillation that over the past millennium brought the world the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, and now the Modern Warm Period.

Fallacy 7: There are reliable forecasts of future climate. No credence can be given to this claim, says de Freitas, until the models making the forecasts have been verified, which likely will not happen anytime soon. In fact, he notes that "earth's atmosphere has warmed only about 10 per cent as much as climate models forecast, averaged over the last 30 years." The reason? "Large uncertainties associated with most model parameters."

Fallacy 8: Significant anthropogenic global warming is underway. First of all, as de Freitas has noted, there may not be any warming currently occurring. Second, as he has demonstrated, much of what may be occurring may be natural. Third, much of what little man-induced warming may exist may not be due to CO2 emissions, but rather to urbanization, changes in land use, and various other greenhouse gases and particulates.

Fallacy 9: Global warming will produce a rise in sea level. Again, not so, according to de Freitas. For one thing, he notes there has been no acceleration in long-term sea level rise over the past century. Plus, he cites the work of many scientists who suggest that warming could result in greater snowfall over the polar ice caps, transferring large amounts of water from the oceans to the ice sheets and possibly halting sea level rise.

Fallacy 10: Global warming will result in more extreme weather events. Nothing could be further from the truth, as de Freitas demonstrates. Whether it be extremes of heat and cold, droughts, floods, hail, tornadoes or hurricanes, there is absolutely no evidence that these phenomena have increased globally over the twentieth century. In fact, there is much empirical evidence to suggest that more warmth leads to a more stable climate.

Fallacy 11: IPCC's predictions are reasonable. In addition to the many problems associated with current climate models, IPCC warming predictions are based on future greenhouse gas scenarios that are patently unreasonable. Over half of their predictions, according to de Freitas, assume that atmospheric CO2 is increasing twice as fast as it actually is, while methane concentrations have fallen steadily for the past seventeen years.

Fallacy 12: Observed temperature trends are those predicted by climate models. It is difficult to see how this statement can be believed when, as noted by de Freitas, (1) "observed global warming is so much less than predicted by conventional climate models," (2) so fantastically less than the high-end warming that is used to leverage political action, (3) possibly due to other causes than CO2, or (4) even non-existent.

Fallacy 13: There is a consensus that greenhouse induced climate change is a major threat. Quoting de Freitas, "scientists are a well-educated, diverse and ill-disciplined assortment of freethinkers." To believe such a group would reach a consensus on so complex an issue is ludicrous in the extreme. Indeed, de Freitas' own paper, with its many references, is ample proof that true science is alive and well ... and dissenting.

Fallacy Fourteen: The threat of human-caused climate change justifies taking the action proposed in the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol. If there is a consensus on anything related to this issue, it is that Kyoto's effect on temperature "would be imperceptible," writes de Freitas. "So," he continues, "in addition to being ineffective, costly, and unfair to industrialized nations, the Kyoto Protocol is also unnecessary."

So there you have it, you pays your money and you choose which scientist to believe. One last point that strikes me, if you don't agree with the whole Co2 warming the earth up theory, then you are thinking the same way as George W Bush. Now what are the chances of that?