mises.org
A Global Warming Primer
by Robert Blackstock
[Posted April 25, 2001]
On Earth Day, environmentalists again made appearances
on the news, predicting that global warming will mean the
end of life as we know it. As more Americans become
aware that anthropogenic (caused or produced by
humans) global warming is a hoax, the people who make
their incomes from scaring us must increase their
efforts. For those readers who are not aware of the
mounting evidence against global warming, here is a brief
history.
What is global warming? Theoretically, it is when the
greenhouse
gases—water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide,
etc.—accumulate in the atmosphere and trap heat that
normally would have
been allowed to escape. All of these gases exist
naturally. The problem,
according to environmentalists, is that humans are
increasing the amount of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and thereby are
disrupting the natural
carbon cycle. How are we doing this? By burning fossil
fuels, which release
stored carbon, and by deforestation, since trees absorb
carbon dioxide and
are approximately 50 percent carbon by weight.
The environmentalists claim to have scientific proof that
global warming is
occurring. In order to examine the evidence, we must go
back to the
beginning. How many of us remember the early-1970s
scientists who
warned of global cooling? In 1973, Douglas Colligan
published an article in
Science Digest entitled "Brace Yourself for Another Ice
Age." The
information in the article came from Stephen Schneider, a
Stanford scientist
who, more recently, was a participant in Clinton’s Global
Climate Change
Roundtable. In the '70s, Schneider used computer models to
attempt to
forecast future climates. Computer models in the early
1970s—need I say
more? But that wasn’t the end.
By the mid-1980s, Schneider and most other scientists had
changed their
tune. Computer modeling had become more sophisticated
(now we had
DOS!), and it was announced that ice wasn’t creeping down
from the north,
but instead that ice was going to melt at the poles and
cover the coastal
cities. So . . . is this happening?
The computer models themselves must make some pretty
heroic
assumptions on how nature works. A key ingredient is
knowing how much
carbon is being released by man and how much is being
absorbed by
nature. Unfortunately, even this necessary variable is
beyond our
grasp. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change,
approximately 1.6 billion tons of carbon are missing from
the annual balance
(IPCC-I, 1990a, p. 14). That is, one third of the carbon
necessary to make
these environmental forecasts is missing from the
equation!
This should be old news. In 1988 testimony before the
Senate, James
Hansen, the chief of NASA’s Goddard Institute, claimed
that, "the
[human-caused] greenhouse effect has been detected and it
is changing our
climate now." However, in October 1998, Dr. Hansen
changed his tune. In
that month’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, Dr.
Hansen stated, "The forces that drove long-term climate
change are not
known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate
change."
One question I often hear in response to this is, "What
about the physical
evidence?" The fact is, there is no physical evidence
supporting the
global-warming theory. The closest thing to evidence that
can be produced
is 40 years' worth of temperature measurements in major
metropolitan
areas. The problem here is that metropolitan areas create
what are known
as heat islands: The concrete and steel absorb and store
heat and distort
the readings.
Attempts are made to adjust for this phenomenon, but no
serious scientist
who has ever studied the numbers can seriously accept this
as
evidence. Furthermore, this tortured data directly
contradicts NASA’s Tiros
weather satellites (arguably the most accurate
measurements of global
warming), which show that the earth has actually cooled
slightly since 1979.
With all of these facts, one must ask why the deceit
continues? The first
reason is federal government money. As reported by James
Sheehan of the
Capital Research Center in 1998, "recent-selected EPA
grants to nonprofit
organizations"—such as the Alliance for Responsible
Atmospheric Policy, the
Climate Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund—amounted to
$12.2
million. It is not a stretch to imagine what people will
say in order to
protect their portion of $12.2 million.
Another group perpetuating the global-warming myth
consists of those who
would "profit" if fossil-fuel production were to be
forcefully
reduced—researchers in solar power and other alternative
fuel sources, for
instance. Finally, there are the good, old-fashioned con
men, like Dr. Robert
Liburdy. Dr. Liburdy recently has been charged by the
federal government for
"deliberately [creating] ‘artificial’ data where no such
data existed." What
was this data for? Liburdy is the man who, in 1992,
claimed that his data
proved a link between power lines and cancer, thereby
starting his own
nationwide scare.
So, the question that Americans must ask is this: "Do
environmental
problems exist?" The answer is yes, they do—but
anthropogenic global
warming is not one of them. Unfortunately, as long as
people are distracted
by the myths, their attention will not be centered on the
facts.
* * * * *
Rob Blackstock teaches environmental economics and is a
Ph.D. candidate at
Auburn University. Send him mail. See also Mises.org on
Earthday. Finally,
see Sheehan's article Goverment and the Weather |
