Global Warming
Is there a consensus?

If one were to accept what the media says about global warming [gw], one would conclude that it is an open and shut case. The Weather Channel has its resident gw person, De. Heidi Cullen. She has a program “The Climate Code” dedicated to “what you can do about gw”. She features patron saints of the gw movement such a Sir Richard Branson and Ted Turner as well as the average Joe who is helping stem the tide against gw. This is especially amusing since the network is about weather prediction which is rarely correct beyond 48 hours. Yet they pontificate about gw and its ill effects as if it is a certainty.

Global warming is the biggest of all environmental dangers at present, maintain many environmentalists. Ironically, the great fear thirty years ago was of global cooling, for scientists recognized then that the earth is nearing a downward turn in its millennia-long cycle of rising and falling temperatures, correlated with cycles in solar energy output. But no more. Now people fear that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, called a "greenhouse gas" because it traps solar heat in the atmosphere rather than allowing it to radiate back into space, will cause global average temperatures to rise. The rising temperatures, they fear, will melt polar ice caps, raise sea levels, cause deserts to expand, and generate more and stronger hurricanes and other storms.

But, does everyone agree that this is the case? Environmental Scientist S. Fred Singer says:
Climate science is not "settled;" it is both uncertain and incomplete. The available observations do not support the mathematical models that predict a substantial global warming and form the basis for a control policy on greenhouse (GH) gas emissions. We need a more targeted program of climate research to settle major scientific problems.

In the early years of the gw movement there was a seeming consensus. The only issue was whether gw would lead to catastrophic results. However, any consensus began cracking in 1992. A Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming, released February 27, 1992, signed by forty-seven atmospheric scientists, many of whom specialized in global climate studies warned that plans to promote a carbon emissions reduction treaty to fight global warming at the upcoming Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 were "based on the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuels and requires immediate action.” They concluded: "We do not agree." It cited "a recently published paper [that] suggests that sunspot variability, rather than a rise in greenhouse gases, is responsible for the global temperature increases and decreases recorded since about 1880."

In 1995 came the Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change, developed at the International Symposium on the Greenhouse Controversy held in Leipzig, Germany, and revised and updated after a second symposium there in November 1997. Signed by eighty leading scientists in the field of global climate research and twenty-five meteorologists, the document declared "the scientific basis of the 1992 Global Climate Treaty to be flawed and its goal to be unrealistic," saying it was "based solely on unproven scientific theories, imperfect climate models–and the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from an increase in greenhouse gases." It added, "As the debate unfolds, it has become increasingly clear that–contrary to conventional wisdom–there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide. In fact, most climate specialists now agree that actual observations from both satellite and balloon-borne radiosondes show no current warming whatsoever–in direct contradiction to computer model results." And it concluded: "based on all the evidence available to us, we cannot subscribe to the politically inspired world view that envisages climate catastrophes and calls for hasty actions. For this reason, we consider the drastic emission control policies deriving from the Kyoto conference–lacking credible support from the underlying science–to be ill-advised and premature." This was reaffirmed and updated in 2005.

There is also the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine [OISM] Global Warming Petition signed by 17,000 basic and applied American scientists The petition urged the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol "and any other similar proposals," saying boldly, "The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind." It added: “There is no convincing evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.” [See www.oism.org/pprojects ].

Finally, as recently as 3 days ago, Richard Gray, Science Correpondent for the Sunday Telegraph in London reported that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be reporting in February that “[m]ankind has had less effect on global warming than previously expected.” Gray reports that the IPC is also halving their sea level rise prediction. This is not, experts say, a backing off gw predictions but a “refinement due to better data on how the climate works.” Translation: Our models are wrong and we must recalibrate based on real facts. Golly, if the UN, where Hugo Chavez can call the President “Satan” among the giggles and applause of the delegates, is moving away from their dire predictions of 2001, maybe there will be more “refinement” forthcoming.

Now, I am sure most of you readers have never seen any of this information. You have heard Al Gore, the Hollywood elites and the envirocrrazies proclaiming the doom and gloom of gw. You will not see balance in the popular media. They are the chief propagandists of the gw movement seeing themselves as the oracles of a new gospel…salvation through environmental activism. But, when you look into the facts and examine the science, gw appears to fall short of truth. There is no consensus and great skepticism about gw, so Christians and all others interested in truth must approach the topic with great care.