[This article appeared in Conservative Review, July/August 1996,
pp. 7-16.]
“Global
Warming”: A Lysenko-Like Challenge to the World
Scientific Community
Dwight D. Murphey
Wichita State University
An obvious
premise of the recent film The American President is that virtue lies entirely
on the side of those who think that "global warming” threatens imminent
catastrophe. To this view, anyone who suggests otherwise or who calls for
restraint on enormously expensive "solutions" until science obtains
more data, is necessarily venal or woefully ignorant.
Vice
President Al Gore expressed this outlook in his 1992 book Earth in the
Balance. He wanted to preempt debate by consigning doubters to ineffectual
spectator status: "If, when the remaining unknowns about the environmental
challenge enter the public debate, they are presented as signs that the crisis
may not be real after all, it undermines the effort to build a solid base of
public support for the difficult actions we must soon take." He called for
a "coalescence of public support for action." Prohibitively
expensive action first -- before the collection of necessary data. The
problem of closed-mindedness goes, however, far beyond a specific issue. Of
more transcending importance is the fact that the global warming issue joins
several others in showing that the scientific world is in crisis.
The
integrity of science is fundamental to civilization. But a fawning after
"political correctness" has come to pervade much scientific inquiry.
Is
integrity still a paramount value to most scientists? Subject of course to many
exceptions, it would not seem so. The leading scientific journals'
discussion of global warming features a dangerous combination: Much informed
reason in the best tradition of scientific inquiry, but shaped by
"hype" for the politically correct view.
After I
finished much of my reading for this article, I delayed writing until I could
find the results from the latest global satellite temperature measurements.
These measurements have been made on a comprehensive worldwide basis since
1979. Although this is a relatively short period, each passing year provides a
more extended picture of world temperature trends. Land- and sea-based
measurements, although they go back over a much longer period, don't cover
large parts of the world.
Accordingly,
I read a number of the most recent scientific articles to see what they
reported about satellite findings.
Significantly,
almost none of them mentioned it. They pointed to one or another study that
would support a warming trend. It wasn't until I came to the Science News article
of
This is
vitally important to the assessment of "global warming" as a
substantive issue. But we should first notice what the article reveals about
the science itself. Far from treating the satellite results as important, the
article gives an entirely different slant. The headline says nothing about the
satellite results. Remarkably, in total contradiction to them, it trumpets that
“1995 Captures Record as Warmest Year Yet." The lead sentence says the
"earth's average temperature in 1995 jumped to a new high in the
140-year-long record of reliable global measurements." The article adds
that "the warmth last year continues a 10-year trend of rising
temperatures that has accelerated in the 1990s. The 5-year period from
1991 through 1995 is the warmest half-decade in the record…"
The first
part of the article states all this as true, and says it is based on
"data collected from land stations, ships, and buoys." Only then does
the author tell about the satellite measurements and that they are more
comprehensive than the other data. Read as a whole, the article contains both
sets of information. But the article isn't a balanced discussion founded in
scientific objectivity. It reeks of hype.1
Hype was at
the core, too, of; the New York Times News Service report that appeared in the
press on
To
understand this in context, one needs to I know that the global warming
movement has been preoccupied by a search for a "signal" indicating
the presence of anthropogenic (humanly caused) warming. But this is singularly
odd and empty. Evidence of an effect does not address the extent of
the effect and the direction and extent of the consequences. Strangely,
after all the hue and cry, the search for a "signal" amounts to a
search for evidence only of the most preliminary, threshold, rudimentary point.
What
precisely is the "signal" that the IPCC report describes? Not newly
discovered data. At the end of a lengthy article, readers are told only that
"a new generation of studies has enhanced [scientists'] confidence in
computer simulations." In other words, there is a rush to declare a
finding of the "signal" even though it is based on computer modeling
rather than observed fact.
The abuse of
scientific objectivity extends well beyond the global warming issue. Hugh W. Ellsaesser, now retired from the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, recently authored a study "The Misuse of Science in
Environmental Management" that reviews air quality issues, the ozone-layer
question, and global warming. After his discussion of air quality, he says:
"The history of air pollution control regulation in the
One result
of the rise of an ideologized scientific
establishment is that the public is thrown into a quandary over "which
science to believe." Experts vie against experts, and the public becomes
no better off than a jury that must decide between experts who have sold their
opinions to the contending sides in a lawsuit. Cynicism and loss of social
consensus are bound to follow.
A Case That Fifty Years Ago
Scandalized the World Scientific Community: The Lysenko
Affair
There was a
time when the world scientific community greeted with horror any attempt to
impose ideology onto science. In 1948 scientists were scandalized by the Stalin
regime's insistence
on a certain "proletarian” version of genetics.
The Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences endorsed biologist Trofim D. Lysenko's theory that
an organism passes environmentally-acquired properties on to the next
generation. Until the mid-1960s, all teaching of Mendel's theory of heredity-only-through-genes
was suppressed in the
The
reaction of the world scientific community was so strong that it must be
counted among the many "shocks" that Marxism-Leninism suffered that
brought it into eventual disrepute among intellectuals outside the Soviet bloc.
Such a reaction speaks well for the science of a half-century ago. It was
fundamentally committed to its own integrity.
This
commitment is not nearly so strong today. Undeniably, work of immense value
continues to be done. But a number of factors compromise scientific integrity.
One, of course, is the presence of "politically correct" intellectual
intolerance and the unfortunate desire that many have to conform to it, either
because they are participants in the ethos of the intelligentsia as a
subculture or because conforming is the easiest way to get along. Second, a
recent book by Michael L. Parsons points to "career pressures" as
"very strong in contemporary science." Third, the
academic world's emphasis on publish-or-perish stresses quantity of output.
And, fourth, "most scientific research is funded by federal grants from
agencies" that have a particular interest or outlook, leading to the
politicization of science.3
This
institutionalization and funding is very much in evidence in the environmental
"movement," which stands in tandem with much environmental science.
The Heritage Foundation comments that "in 1996, Washington's environmental
groups... are large and influential 'inside-the-beltway' political
organizations with very large budgets: 1994 revenues for the Wilderness Society
were over $15 million, National Audubon Society - $36 million, Sierra Club -
$43 million, National Wild- life Federation - $101 million, Nature Conservancy -
$307million.”4
The crisis
within science is of vast importance, but the loss of integrity and credibility
also warps our media and educational system. These are just as much given to
ideology and hype, and are just as hostile to an honest give-and-take of ideas.
The American President illustrates the media's treatment of the issue.
To check how objective the school system is, visit your nearest middle school's
library to see what it carries on "global warming." Predictably,
there will be a lack of balance.
This article
will review the substance of "global warming." But we should keep in
mind that even more important is the declining credibility of the
scientific
establishment, as well as of other sources of information.
What an
irony! - that at the advent of "the Information
Age" we are besieged not by information but by propaganda.
Theory of the Greenhouse Effect
There is no
dispute about the presence of a "greenhouse effect," which is
essential to life. The earth would be frozen without it, since the heat
received from the sun would be released into space. What makes life possible is
that an envelope of greenhouse gases traps some of the radiation, retaining
warmth. Water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas, but there are also others,
among them carbon dioxide. In the cycle of nature, animals take in oxygen and
breathe out carbon dioxide; plants do the opposite, absorbing carbon dioxide
and releasing oxygen.
Plant and
animal life depend on the balance that the greenhouse effect creates between
the amount of energy retained and the amount released to outer space. A great
many natural events affect this balance, but it is also true that human
activity -- mainly the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and the loss of
farmland -- is increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.5
It is thought that (if there are no offsetting factors, in an atmospheric
system of unbelievable complexity) this increase in an important greenhouse gas
will increase the retention of heat, warming the atmosphere.
Less than
two decades ago, the worldwide cooling that occurred between 1950 and 1980
caused many scientists to fear that the earth is entering a new ice age. It has
been 11,000 years since the end of the last ice age. A fact that is surprising
to me is that ice ages endure for about 100,000 years, with a mere 10 to 12,000
years of warmth between them. If a million-year cycle continues, we are near
the end of a warm period.6 Most of us don't realize it, but the
world recently experienced a "Little Ice Age" during the 200 years
between 1650 and 1850.7
The Global Warming Hysteria
During the
concern about earth cooling, opposing warnings began to be heard about too much
heat retention. In 1967, a computer model at
The warming
issue really came into its own, though, quite recently -- in fact, less than a
decade ago in 1988 --with the extravagant reception given to the
Congressional testimony of James Hansen, the director in New York City of NASA'
s Goddard Institute of Space Studies.8 His testimony merely pointed
to "warming" without addressing its extent. Oddly, something so
innocuous had an electrifying effect. A startling coordination of activity by
the world political-scientific-ideological establishment followed on its heels.
That same
year, the
One
apocalyptic prediction followed another, so that a mere four years later
Senator Gore, seeing an "extremely grave" crisis, called for
immediate, worldwide measures and asserted that it would be catastrophic to
await the collection of further data. He looked forward to the elimination of
the internal combustion engine within twenty-five years.10
Much
of the increase in carbon dioxide comes, and in the future will increasingly
come, from the
In
1990, Robert M. White, former head of the U.S. Weather Bureau, told how "a
recent report of the Council of Economic Advisers... states that the cost of
controlling carbon dioxide emissions and of taking other actions to address
climate change would run into hundreds of billions of dollars." "Such
reallocations of resources," he said, "raise the specter of grave
economic consequences."11 Parsons
says that "according to the Department of Energy, the cost to the
Here
are some of the points made by those who support the global warming thesis:
A
doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would lead, according to
varied computer models, to an increase in average world temperature of
from 3.25F to 9.54F.14
An
atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute says "agriculture
would be disastrously affected. Many crops will no longer grow where they
do now. Water supplies will change, deserts will expand, forests will disappear. Floods and Storms will increase
in severity and frequency... Sea level will rise; estimates range from one
meter to dozens of meters. Even the lesser estimate will be disastrous for
many cities and farmlands world wide."15
The
1990 report of the IPCC says that the "stabilization of greenhouse
gases at present levels would require a reduction of manmade emissions of
more than 60 percent." It predicts that at the current rate of growth
of emissions, "temperatures will increase by 1.8F in the next three
decades." Sea level "will rise... 26 inches by the end of the
next century."16
David
A. Wirth, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, says
(contrary to the satellite data) that "the five warmest years in this
century all occurred during the 1980s.
Moreover, the rate of global warming for the past two decades
was higher than any in recorded history."17
A Rhetoric of Suggestion
As
we analyze the hype, we should notice the seductive progression of the argument
in the following passage from Wirth's article, which passes from
"could" and "may" to "will." I have added the
italics: "An international scientific consensus now supports the assertion
that the accumulation of [greenhouse gases] could have sweeping and far-reaching
effects on the earth's climate. By as early as the year 2030, the
heat-retaining capacity of the atmosphere may have increased by an
amount equivalent to doubling preindustrial
concentrations
of carbon dioxide. By the middle of the next
century,
average global temperatures may have risen by as much as 3F-9F. The
absolute magnitude of these temperatures, as well as the rapidity of
temperature change, will exceed any previously experienced in human
history."l8
The
same form of argument appears in a World Health article by Enrique H.
Bucher of the Centre for Applied Zoology in Argentina: "... could lead
to global warming ...other gases may have increased ... there could be
a rise in sea levels of ...could affect the epidemiological patterns ...could
expand the areas ..." But then: "The disease would thus spread…"19
This
style, which passes from speculation to factual assertion, is important to the
apocalyptic case, since most scientific writing admits that the supporting
evidence is terribly sparse and is contradicted by other evidence. The
proponents have the burden of showing that trillions of dollars should be spent
and a vast shift of resources made from the developed to the underdeveloped
world before rather than after the evidence is in any sense
definitive. To do this, it is necessary to regale the public with speculative
possibilities and then to secure its acceptance that those speculations are
fact.
Is There a Consensus Among Scientists?
It
is hard to tell how many scientists are convinced and how many simply conform
themselves to the hype, since even most of the articles centered on hype
eventually disclose the uncertainties and opposing evidence somewhere in their
discussion.
Senator
Gore asserted that 98 percent of the scientists in the field support the
thesis, and only two percent oppose it.20 Geoffrey Jenkins of the
British Meteorological Office, who coordinated the IPCC report, is quoted as
saying that "it's as close as you can get to a consensus in the
meteorological community."21 The New York Times News Service
report of September 10, 1995, which I mentioned earlier, conceded that
"all but a few" climatologists have been unsure, but told how
the IPCC had concluded in a new report that confidence in "a new
generation of [computer] studies" had gone far to remove the doubts.
Certainly my reading of recent scientific journals shows me that that
literature is very much on the bandwagon.
Nevertheless,
many reasoned voices reject the hype and argue for objective science. Parsons
says "atmospheric scientists have, with few exceptions, maintained their
open-mindedness and scientific objectivity with respect to what can and cannot
be concluded from computer climate models." He says "the results of
the models have been misused and misstated by environmental advocates…"22
Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia, a senior fellow in
environmental studies at the Cato Institute, asks, "where do we find the
'hundreds of scientists' who are usually cited as representing this or that
consensus that the time to act is now? They are not members of the climate
science community; there simply are not that many of us." The others are
"scientists who are not climatologists at all but are in distantly related
fields."23 Indeed, he says "the anti-apocalyptic argument
is now so strong that it is becoming mainstream."24 This
movement can be expected to increase if the best evidence -- the global
satellite temperature readings -- continues with each passing year to provide
no empirical verification of the predictions made by the simulation models.
The Case Against the Scare: Summary
The
strongest thing the apocalyptic view has going for it is "the argument
from uncertainty": "we had better act now, because if we don't"
...followed by a parade of horrors similar to that used by a door-to-door fire
alarm salesman.
The
case against the scare is strong, however, and consists of several parts:
1.
The severe limitations of the computer simulations that are relied upon by
those who assert impending catastrophe.
2.
The empirical data, the strongest of which contradict the hypothesis of drastic
earth warming.
3.
Causal factors relating to world climate that offset any propensity toward
warming, or that even refute that humanly-caused increases in carbon dioxide
play a significant role in climate changes.
4.
An insight that a general warming, if it occurs, will likely be benign or even
of positive value.
5.
Reasons to believe that there is time to collect further data before taking
steps that are enormously expensive.
6.
An awareness that there is little in any event that the industrialized nations
can do to redirect the development of the
7.
A readiness to endorse measures that can be taken at reasonable expense and
that would make sense even in the absence of an environmental scare.
8. An awareness that there are ideological and political
forces behind the scare, so that its assertions should not be accepted at face
value.
Let's
examine these one at a time:
Insufficiency of the Computer
Simulations
Parsons
indicates that since scientists began developing them in the 1950s, at least
nineteen "general circulation
models" (GCMs) for the computerized simulation of world climate have
come into use at research centers around the world. So great is the reliance on
computer models that the argument is often made, Michael says, that "the
observed data don't matter." He quotes Chris Folland
of the United Kingdom Meteorological Office as saying that "we're not
basing our recommendations upon the data; we're basing them upon the climate
models.”25
Parsons
says computer models must satisfy certain criteria if they are to approximate
the real world: the model must consider all significant factors; the data fed
into the model must be realistic; arbitrary "adjustment factors"
shouldn't be used; only predictions extrapolating over a short period of time
should be made; and their predictions should be successful, providing
validation.
The
factors that must be included are, among others, the sun's radiation flux;
sunspot cycles; effects of the earth's rotation; the moon' s
gravitational pull; wind; clouds; ocean currents; ice cover; variations in the
earth's orbit; day-night temperature fluctuations; and major natural events,
such as volcanoes, forest fires, hurricanes, and El Nino and La Nina (the
periodic warming or cooling of ocean surface temperature off the west coast of
South America).26
Even
this list is far from exhaustive. In my notes I immediately come upon water
vapor, the main greenhouse gas, which is a highly variable factor. In addition,
"aerosols" (specks of fine particulate matter in the atmosphere that
sometimes "float about on air currents for days, weeks, or even
years" and that are not to be confused with household aerosol sprays) are
"a powerful influence" that computer models have hardly taken into
account.27
It
isn't enough, of course, simply 'to include all factors; each has to be
quantified realistically. That's a tall order.
Do
the models adequately take these things into account? Not according to Fred
Singer, director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project in
Much
of the data available for use in the models is incomplete and of questionable
reliability, in part because a comprehensive scientific effort to measure all
the factors consistently and accurately hasn’t existed in the past and is just
now coming into being, if at all. Even so seemingly rudimentary a thing as land
and sea temperature measurements involves a shaky historical record, since
methods of measurement
vary, locations change, readings are subject to the heat-increasing influence
of urbanization, etc.
Despite the
IPCC’s recent announcement of confidence, the models
fail the validation test. Singer says that "for a model to predict future
climate with any credibility, it must first be able to reproduce the current
climate... [but] the models have failed miserably in
accounting for past temperature changes, cannot explain the highly accurate
global record from weather satellites -- and are internally inconsistent to
boot. Model predictions of future global warming vary by 300 percent."31
Parsons says "you probably have not read about model validation in
any of the popular literature. The omission... stems from the fact that current
computer climate models... do not accurately predict known weather on a global
basis." Later, he says: "The fact is the earth should already have warmed
enough for detection by our current experimental measurement systems if the
computer climate models were correct. This warming has not occurred, which is
reasonable proof of their inadequacies."32
As if this
weren't enough, the models have operated on a totally unrealistic assumption.
They have hypothesized an immediate doubling of the amount of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere rather than the gradual build-up that would actually
occur. Parsons says "a realistic model would slowly increase the
concentrations of these gases over the years." He says that
"according to the IPCC, several recent experiments that have followed a
more realistic approach... predict global temperature increases of only about
one-third of those models that double the carbon dioxide concentration."33
As this
tells us, the models are
gradually producing more moderate predictions. Parsons says "the early
models predicted greater increases in global warming than more recent ones...
It appears that the more realistic the global climate models become, the
smaller the temperature change they predict!" He quotes William Nierenberg
of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography: "It was only some 17 years ago
that serious predictions of a 25 ft. rise [in sea level from the melting of the
polar ice caps] in a matter of 'decades' was made by an expert. This estimate
has been steadily reduced... In fact, there are some who believe, on the basis
of the actual measurements of the change in Green- land ice-cap thickness and
model predictions, that the average sea-level may even
decrease! ... The current version of the IPCC barely mentions sea- level
rise."34
2. The Conflicting Data
We have
already seen how the Science News article in January 1996 spoke of a
"20-year trend of rising temperatures that has accelerated in the 1990s" -- based on "data
from land stations, ships, and buoys." Robert T. Watson, associate
director for environment in the Clinton White House's Office of Science and
Technology Policy, writes that "there is no doubt that the Earth's climate
has changed during the last 100 years. The global mean air-surface temperature
over the land and ocean has warmed between 0.6 and 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit,
glaciers have retreated globally and sea level has risen 10 to 25
centimeters."35
Parsons,
however, points out that the IPCC's finding that
there has been a 0.5-1.1 degree Fahrenheit increase over the past century (upon
which Watson may have based his slightly varied figure) "is no greater
than that caused by natural climate variability." (The world has, after
all, been rebounding from the "Little Ice Age.") He goes on to say,
however, that "there may not have been an increase at all," citing a
group of MIT climatologists. In any event, he says, "there is considerable
inconsistency in the temperature data gathered during the past hundred
years."36
Most
significantly, the two best sets of data show no increase at all. One
is of the land measurements taken at 1219 stations in the
As to the
first, Parsons cites T. R. Karl at the
As to
satellite measurements, we have already seen what Science News so
reluctantly reports about them. They provide the most comprehensive picture,
and they show a slight cooling.
3. Causal Factors that Offset or Negate Warming
Atmospheric
interactions are vast and extremely complex, so that the simplistic axiom of
the global warming movement that "more humanly-caused carbon dioxide will
lead to global warming" doesn't automatically follow. Much else is going
on.
Variations
that have occurred in the earth's orbit, Parsons says, "are consistent
with the timing of the ice ages." I commented earlier about a startling
fact discussed by Parsons when he says that "during the past million years
there have been ten ice ages, each lasting about 100,000 years, interspersed
with short interglacial periods of relative warmth lasting only about 10,000 to
12,000 years."39 We are already 11,000 years into the current
period of warmth. If the world is heading back into another long ice age
because of a long-term cycle in the earth's orbit, even the most strenuous
efforts to create a warming will likely be of negligible effect.
If the
world's cloud cover increases, more sunlight will be
reflected away from the earth, with a cooling effect. Michaels says "a
small increase in cloudiness could spell the death of the Popular Vision."
And cloudiness is increasing: Michaels reports
that "even if we disregard the data before 1950, there is an overall
increase in Northern Hemisphere cloudiness of 2 percent from then through the
early 1980s, which is the
current termination point of the analyzed record. There is also an increase in
cloudiness in the Southern Hemisphere, although the magnitude of that increase
is about half…"40
Increased
carbon dioxide leads to more plant growth. (Recall that plants absorb carbon
dioxide and emit oxygen). Sherwood Idso, research
physicist with the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory, writes that
"gaseous carbon dioxide is the primary raw material used by plants in
producing food via photosynthesis." He points out yet another surprising
fact: "Throughout the history of life on Earth, it almost always has
been present in the atmosphere in much greater concentrations than exist today.
Hence, over the course of geologic time, plants have become accustomed to air
considerably more enriched with carbon dioxide than ours is. Whenever they are
'fed' more atmospheric carbon dioxide, they grow bigger and better" (emphasis
added). Moreover, "enriching the air with carbon dioxide leads to greater
levels of soil organic matter, which promotes the building of the earthworm
populations, which helps plants to grow better still…"41 These
things are worth remembering when we hear hysterical comments about
deforestation.
Aerosols
(fine particulate matter in the atmosphere) are increasing. This is a major
offset against warming. Parsons speaks of "the cooling effects of aerosols
because of both their direct reflection of solar radiation and their indirect
participation in cloud formation." Their role is now "recognized to
be nearly equal in magnitude, but opposite to the warming effect caused by the
increase in greenhouse gases." He adds: "This means that in the two
years after the first IPCC report, the scientists on the panel found a global
cooling process that equals the dreaded global warming!" (emphasis added)
Human
activity emits some cooling gases, such as sulfur, but so do volcanoes, and the
earth has been in a period of intensified volcanic activity, with about 100
eruptions per year.
Dixy Lee Ray
pointed out that "all of the air polluting materials produced by man since
the beginning of the industrial revolution do not begin to equal the quantities
of toxic materials, aerosols, and particulates spewed into the air from just
three [major] volcanoes…"42
In addition
to these and other offsets, there is a natural cap to the warming that carbon
dioxide produces. Michael says that small increases result in temperature
changes, but that "as concentrations increase, the response becomes
muted, and eventually the temperature does not
change" (emphasis added). Why? Ellsaesser
says that "Priestly deduced that there should be a 'rather sharply defined
upper limit to which air temperature will rise above a well-watered
surface.'"43
Moreover,
there is doubt about the direction in which causation runs. Michaels reports
that "gas bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice tell us that the temperature
dropped before the carbon dioxide concentration changed, not
after." Pointing to a known lag between temperature changes and carbon
dioxide changes, Parsons poses the question of "does the carbon dioxide
concentration in the atmosphere regulate the earth's temperature or does the
earth's temperature determine the carbon dioxide concentration in the
atmosphere?"44
A similar
question of causation relates to whether human activity has anything to do with
the sea-level rise that has occurred during the past century. Chris Harrison of
the University of Miami is quoted as saying that "the rate of change has
been constant over the past 100 rears, whereas if the sea-level rise were
caused by humans, the curve should have taken a marked upward bend over the
past 50 years" as world population increased and economic development sped
up.45
4. A Possible Net Benefit From Warming
Levels of
atmospheric carbon dioxide have been higher than they are today
"throughout most of the past billion years," and "the same is
also true for most of the past 100 million years, which is the period,"
Michaels says, "during which most of our food and fiber crops
evolved." The lower level has been present during the past five million
years. Before the global warming scare, climatologists spoke of a "climatic
optimum" that occurred 4,000 to 7,000 years ago when temperatures were
3.6F higher than they are today. It is little wonder, then, that
Sherwood Idso can "suggest that ... the carbon
dioxide greenhouse effect significantly will enhance the direct biological
benefits of atmospheric carbon dioxide enrichment and thereby help
thrust the
planet into a new era of enhanced biospheric
productivity, creating a clear and present benefit for all the many
species…"46
5. There is Time to Collect Data
Research
into global climate change has received immense funding -- "$2.1 billion
per year, topping the budget of the National Cancer Institute," Singer
said in his September 1995 article. He argues that, "the timing [of expensive
measures] can be delayed safely by a decade or more... By then we also will
have 25 years' worth of satellite data and perhaps a better scientific
understanding of what's wrong with the theory."47 This is
consistent with what we have seen so far. An implication, Singer suggests, is
that the
6. The Quixotic Foolishness of Worldwide Mobilization
Where are
carbon dioxide emissions increasing? Not in the "developed world,"
Parsons says. There, they have "leveled off or even decreased." But
"the developing nations of
The result
is that the worldwide mobilization called for by Gore and by the Global Climate
Treaty is a tilting at windmills, ultimately ineffectual but disastrously
expensive. Gore's Earth in the Balance acknowledges that the Third World
"will not be denied" the hope for rapid economic development and that
"that choice must not be forced upon them," but this simply prompts
him to call for a "Global Marshall Plan" paid for by the developed
nations (which means, of course, largely by the United States’ taxpayers).49 The scare
can best be seen as a pretext for redistribution and political control, both of
which the Left heartily desires.
Hugh Ellsaesser's recent Heartland Institute study concludes
that "at stake in the debate over global warming is nothing less than the
continued advance of technology and prosperity around the world. To cap or
reduce man-made carbon dioxide emissions would require draconian restrictions
on
manufacturing in the U.S. and around the world. It would require that we
condemn persons in third-world countries to lives of continued misery and
suffering, perhaps even that we use force to stop them from advancing their
condition."50
7. Reasonable Steps that Would Make Sense Anyway
Even though
global warming is doubtful, and effective measures to prevent it would be impossible
in any event, some emission-reducing measures would make sense even in the
absence of the panic. Dixy Lee Ray made an
intelligent appeal for nuclear energy, which by an ironic quirk of ideology
isn't "politically correct" even though it involves no emissions, and
addresses the important questions of safety and disposal of nuclear waste.51
Parsons says that conservation and improving energy efficiency is "no
doubt the single most effective strategy."52 Alternative energy
sources -- solar, wind, geothermal and biomass, along with nuclear energy based
on fission and perhaps eventually on fusion -- may develop as technology
improves and economic forces alter comparative costs.
It is
reasonable to refrain from "solutions" that don't make sense independently.
Among those that have been proposed are injecting dust or soot into the
atmosphere (i.e., increasing the
aerosols), seeding clouds with particulates, putting mirrors into space to
deflect sunlight, and fertilizing the oceans' algae.
It is Time for the Scientific Community to Regain Control as Against
Ideology
Dixy Lee Ray wrote that "it's up to good scientists
to weed out the phonies." Unfortunately, the problem is broader than that
and lies at the heart of the great "scientific establishment," where
it must be fought out among men and women with differing visions of the nature
of science.
The
infection has come from the Left, which pervades the scientific community just
as it does the world artistic and literary establishment. Because of that, the
most effective opposition to ideology must come from scientists who see
themselves as "of the Left," but who are committed to integrity. In
other words, it must come from the Sidney Hooks of the scientific world.
Parsons
begins his final chapter with a quote from Richard Feynman, 1965 Nobel Prize
winner in physics:
If science
is to progress, what we need is the ability to experiment, honesty in reporting
results -- the results must be reported without somebody saying what they would
like the results to have been -- and finally... the intelligence to interpret
the results.
How Best to Serve the World We Love
I grew up
trout fishing on the streams of Colorado, and today I mix fishing with oil
painting, enjoying every light and shadow, every rivulet of water coming down
out of the high country. The high country is part of me, and I care no less
deeply about it than "environmental activists" claim to.
So it isn't
out of callousness that I take a jaundiced view of environmental extremism.
Those who exaggerate and propagandize do not best represent the claims of the
natural world. Mental intolerance, hyperbole, selective use of data, hype,
compromised science, a quixotic worldwide redistributionism,
anti-Western and anti-industrial ideology, and ever-growing governmental
control and centralization of power -- can we honestly say these are
appropriate means? Perhaps we should "check our premises" about what
ends they are designed to serve.
Dwight D. Murphey, an associate
editor of Conservative Review, is the author of Issues in American
History - A Conservative Scholar's Perspective.
1. Article by R. Monastersky,
“1995 Captures Record as Warmest Year Yet,” Science News, January 13,
1996, p. 23.
2. Contact the Heartland Institute
at 800 East Northwest Highway, Suite 1080, Palatine, IL 60067; 708/202-3060,
fax 708/202-9799.
3. Michael L. Parsons, Global
Warming: The Truth ... Behind the Myth (New York: Plenum
Press, 1995), pp. 40-42.
4. Heritage Foundation's "The
Insider," issue of February 1996, p. 1.
5. Douglas Fulmer, former National
Space Society Field Coordinator, tells us that "prior to the industrial
revolution the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 275 to 285
parts per million ... [It has now risen] to 350 parts per million."
Douglas Fulmer, "Turning Up the Heat," in Matthew A. Kraljic, ed., The Greenhouse Effect (New York: H. W.
Wilson Company, 1992), p. 25. Patrick J. Michaels however, says that "as a
result of all the infrared-absorbing emissions, the effective carbon dioxide
concentration is not 357 ppm but 432 ppm." Patrick J. Michaels, Sound and Fury. The
Science and Politics of Global Warming (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute,
1992), P. 13.
6.
Parsons, Global
Warming, p. 7; Dixy Lee Ray, Trashing the
Planet (New York: Harper Perennial, 1990), p. 41; Parsons, Global
Warming, p. 116.
7. Michaels, Sound and Fury, p.
43.
8. Parsons, Global Warming, p.
7.
9. Parsons, Global Warming, p.
59.
10. Senator Al Gore, Earth in the
Balance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992), pp. 36, 326.
11. Robert M. White, "The Great
Climate Debate," Scientific American, July 1990, reprinted in Kraljic, The
Greenhouse Effect,
pp. 21-22.
12. Parsons, Global Warming, pp.
48, 49.
13. Michaels, Sound and Fury, p.
6.
14. Parsons, Global Warming, p.
19.
15. Quoted by Douglas Fulmer,
"Turning Up the Heat," in Kraljic, The
Greenhouse Effect, p. 27.
16. Michaels, Sound and Fury, pp.
26, 27.
17. David A. Wirth, "Climate
Chaos," in Kraljic, The Greenhouse Effect, p.
75.
18. Wirth in Kraljic,
The Greenhouse Effect, p. 73.
19. Article reprinted in Kraljic, The Greenhouse Effect, p. 94.
20. Gore, Earth in the Balance, p.
38.
21. Quoted by James Trefil in a Smithsonian article reprinted in Kraljic, The Greenhouse Effect, pp. 51-52.
22. Parsons, Global Warming, p.
103.
23. Michaels, Sound and Fury, p.
183.
24. Michaels, Sound and Fury, p.
xi.
25. Michaels, Sound and Fury, pp.
82-83.
26. Parsons, Global Warming, pp.
21, 22, 16; Ray, Trashing the Planet, p. 39 (as to sunspot cycles).
27. Parsons, Global Warming, p.
213.
28. Article by Fred Singer, insight,
Sept. 4, 1995, p. 19.
29. Parsons, Global Warming, p.
142.
30. Ray, Trashing the Planet, p.
35.
31. Singer article, insight, pp.
19, 21.
32. Parsons, Global Warming, pp,
99, 238.
33. Parsons, Global Warming, pp.
103, 104.
34. Parsons, Global Warming, pp.
198-199, 33.
35. Article by Robert T. Watson, Insight,
September 4, 1995, p. 18.
36. Parsons, Global Warming, p.
32.
37. Parsons, Global Warming, pp.
130, 136.
38. Michaels, Sound and Fury, p;
111.
39. Parsons, Global Warming, pp.
150, 116.
40. Michaels, Sound and Fury, pp.
95, 97.
41. Article "Carbon Dioxide Can
Revitalize the Planet" reprinted in Kraljic, The
Greenhouse Effect, pp. 78, 80.
42. Parsons, Global Warming, pp.
224-225; Ray, Trashing the Planet, p. 37.
43. Ellsaesser
study (see Endnote #2), p. 21.
44. Michaels, Sound and Fury, p.
10; Parsons, Global Warming, p.149.
45. Quoted in Kraljic,
The Greenhouse Effect, p.
58.
46. Michaels, Sound and Fury, pp.
10, 73; Sherwood Idso in Kraljic,
The Greenhouse Effect, p. 84.
47. Article by Fred Singer, Insight,
September 4, 1995, pp. 19, 21.
48. Parsons, Global Warming, p.
75; Ray, Trashing the Planet, p. 42; the Forbes quote is given in
Parsons, p. 80.
49. Gore, Earth in the Balance, pp.
279, 297.
50. Ellsaesser
study (see Endnote #2), p. 24.
51. See her detailed discussion in
Ray, Trashing the Planet, pp. 95-158.
52. Parsons, Global Warming, p.
65.