View of the Republic
Saturday, December 18, 2004
 
The Global Warming Myth
The article below was written about the huge Global Warming myth that Democrats have continuously blathered about and blamed on Republicans. I always had a hinting that Global Warming wasn't a real threat (mainly because of the numerous scientific reports claiming that the Earth was actually getting colder...) and this pretty much clears it up. I have reprinted the article in full below, and would like to give credit to Tom DeWeese for writing it and to the American Policy Center; a grassroots movement.




There Is No Man-Made Global Warming
by Tom DeWeese
17 December 2004

Modern-day environmentalism has little to do with protecting the environment. Rather, it is a political movement led by those who seek to control the world economies, dictate development, and redistribute the world's wealth.

There is no scientific evidence to back claims of man-made global warming. Period. Anyone who tells you that scientific research shows warming trends -- be they teachers, newscasters, Congressmen, Senators, Vice Presidents or Presidents -- is wrong. In fact, scientific research through U.S. government satellite and balloon measurements shows that the temperature is actually cooling -- very slightly -- .037 degrees Celsius.

A little research into modern-day temperature trends bears this out. For example, in 1936 the Midwest of the United States experienced 49 consecutive days of temperatures over 90 degrees. There were another 49 consecutive days in 1955. But in 1992 there was only one day over 90 degrees and, in 1997, only 5 days. Because of modern science and improved equipment, this "cooling" trend has been most accurately documented over the past 18 years. Ironically, that's the same period of time the hysteria has grown over dire warnings of "warming."

Changes in global temperatures are natural. In fact, much of the recent severe weather has been directly attributed to a natural phenomenon that occurs every so often called El Nino. It causes ocean temperatures to rise as tropical trade winds actually reverse for a time. The resulting temperature changes cause severe storms, flooding, and even drought on every continent on earth. It's completely natural. El Nino has been wreaking its havoc across the globe since long before man appeared.

How about the reports that the polar ice cap is melting? On Election Day the Financial Times of London carried the hysterical headline: “Arctic Ice Cap Set to Disappear by the Year 2070.” The article stated that the Arctic ice cap is melting at an unprecedented rate. The article is based on a report titled: “Impacts of a Warming Arctic,” submitted by a group of researchers called the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA).

It must be understood just who makes up this so-called group of researchers. The report is not unbiased scientific data. Rather, it is propaganda from political groups who have an agenda. The report was commissioned by the Arctic Council, which is comprised of a consortium of radical environmentalists from Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. All are nations that possess land within the Arctic Circle. Many of these countries, through the Kyoto Protocol, have a financial stake in pushing the global warming agenda. One of the groups providing “scientists” to the ACIA “researchers” is the World Wildlife Fund, one of the leading chicken-little scaremongers which creates junk science at the drop of a news release to terrify us all into proper environmental conduct.

The report is now being used at the global warming meeting currently underway in Buenos Aires to rally the troops and bully the United States into accepting the discredited Kyoto Protocol.

We are being warned of killer heat waves, vast flooding, and the spread of tropical diseases. Ocean levels are rising and America's coastlines are doomed, they tell us. Hurricanes and tornadoes have already become more violent, we are warned. Floods and droughts have begun to ravage the nation, they cry.

Any change in temperatures, or an excessive storm, or extended flooding is looked upon as a sure sign that environmental Armageddon is upon us. Diabolical environmentalists are using the natural El Nino phenomenon to whip people into a Global Warming hysteria.

Two Kinds of Scientists

We are assured by such groups that scientists everywhere are sounding these warnings, and that we may only have one chance to stop it. Well, as the debate rages, we find that there are really two kinds of scientists.

There are those who look at facts and make their judgments based on what they see and know. Their findings can be matched by any other scientist, using the same data and set of circumstances to reach the same conclusions. It's an age-old practice called “peer review.” It's the only true science.

And then there are those who yearn for a certain outcome and set about creating the needed data to make it so. Usually you will find this group of scientists greatly dependent on grants supplied by those with a specific political agenda who demand desired outcomes for their money.

Let's just take NASA, for example -- the most trusted name in American science. A lot of NASA scientists have fallen into the money trap. Environmental science has become the life-blood of the space program as the nation has lost interest in space travel. To keep the bucks coming, NASA has justified launches through the excuse of earth-directed environmental research. And the budgets keep coming. At the same time, many of NASA's scientists have a political agenda in great harmony with those who advocate global warming. And they're not above using their position to aid that agenda whenever the chance is available.

This was never more clearly demonstrated than in 1992, when a team of three NASA scientists were monitoring conditions over North America to determine if the ozone layer was in danger. Inconclusive data indicated that conditions might be right for ozone damage over North America -- if certain things happened.

True scientists are a careful lot. They study, they wait, and many times they test again before drawing conclusions. Not so, the green zealot. Of this three-member NASA team, two could not be sure of what they had found and wanted to do more research. But one took the data and rushed to the microphones with all of the drama of a Hollywood movie and announced in hushed tones that NASA had discovered an ozone hole over North America.

Then Senator Al Gore rushed to the floor of the Senate with the news, and drove a stampede to immediately ban Freon -- five years before Congress had intended -- and without a suitable substitute. He then bullied President George H.W. Bush to sign the legislation by saying the ozone hole was over Kennebunkport, Maine -- Bush's favorite vacation spot.

Two months later NASA announced -- on the back pages of the newspapers -- that further research had shown there was no such damage. But it was too late. The valuable commodity known as Freon was gone forever.

Flawed Computer Models

Then there are those computer models. Night after night Americans watch the local news as the weatherman predicts what kind of a day tomorrow will be. These meteorologists, using the most up-to-date equipment available, boldly give you the five-day forecast.

But it's well known that even with all of their research and expensive equipment it really is just a “best guess." There are just too many variables. If the wind picks up here, it could blow in a storm. If the temperature drops there, it could start to snow. The earth is a vast and wondrous place. Weather does what it wants.

Yet those who are promoting the global warming theory have the audacity to tell you they can forecast changes in the global climate decades into the future. The truth is computer models are able to include only two out of 14 components that make up the climate system. To include the third component would take a computer a thousand times faster than we have now. To go beyond the third component requires an increase in computer power that is so large only mathematicians can comprehend the numbers. Moreover, even if the computer power existed, scientists do not understand all the factors and the relationships between them that determine the global climate.

So it's an outrage for the World Wildlife Fund or the Sierra Club to tell you that man-made global warming is a fact and that we Americans must now suffer dire changes in our lifestyle to stop it.

Scientists are Not on the Global Warming Bandwagon

And so too is it an outrage for the news media to tell you that most true scientists now agree that man-made global warming is a fact. What it doesn't tell you is that roughly 500 scientists from around the world signed the Heidleburg Appeal in 1992, just prior to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, expressing their doubts and begging the delegates not to bind the world to any dire treaties based on global warming. Today that figure has grown to over 4000 scientists. Americans aren’t being told that a 1997 Gallop Poll of prominent North American climatologists showed that 83 percent of them disagreed with the man-made global warming theory.

And the deceit knows no bounds. The United Nations released a report at the end of 1996 saying global warming was a fact, yet before releasing the report, two key paragraphs were deleted from the final draft. Those two paragraphs, written by the scientists who did the actual scientific analysis, said:

1. "[N]one of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases."

2. "[N]o study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to…man-made causes."

Obviously, those two paragraphs aren’t consistent with the political agenda the UN is pushing. So, science be damned. Global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the people of the world -- bar none.

The Kyoto Climate Control Protocol

Those who have been fighting against the radical green agenda have been warning that modern-day environmentalism has little to do with protecting the environment. Rather, it is a political movement led by those who seek to control the world economies, dictate development, and redistribute the world's wealth.

They use the philosophical base of Karl Marx, the tactics of the KGB, and the rhetoric of the Sierra Club. The American people have been assaulted from all directions by rabid environmentalists.

School children have been told that recycling is a matter of life and death. Businesses have been shut down. Valuable products like Freon have been removed from the market. Chemicals and pesticides that helped to make this nation the safest and healthiest in the world are targeted for extinction. Our entire nation is being restructured to fit the proper green mold. All of it for a lie about something man has nothing to do with.

But the lie has grown to massive proportions -- and the game is about to get very serious indeed. Pressure is building again to impose the Kyoto Protocol worldwide. Only a few years ago, this treaty appeared dead when President George W. Bush refused American participation. Now, however, Russia has signed on and the UN has enough support to begin implementing its dire consequences -- even on the United States. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has called the White House stance on global warming “terribly disappointing.” McCain is now using the ACIA report to convene hearings on the “human effect on climate and what to do about it.” McCain intends to help build pressure on the President to accept the Kyoto Protocol.

In fact the Kyoto Protocol is a legally binding international treaty through which industrial nations agree to cut back their energy emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels. That means that all of the energy growth since 1990 would be rolled back, plus 7 percent more. Such a massive disruption in the American economy, particularly since it has nothing to do with protecting the environment, will devastate this nation.

To meet such drastically-reduced energy standards will -- in the short run -- cost the United States over one million jobs. Some estimate it will cost over seven million jobs in 14 years. If the treaty sends the economy into a tailspin, as many predict, it will cost even more jobs.

It will cost the average family $1,000 to $4,000 dollars per year in increased energy costs. The cost of food will skyrocket. It has been estimated that in order for the United States to meet such a goal, our gross domestic product will be reduced by $200 billion -- annually.

To force down energy use, the Federal government will have to enforce a massive energy tax that will drive up the cost of heating your home by as much as 30 to 40 percent. In all likelihood there will be a tax on gasoline -- as high as 60 cents per gallon. There will be consumption taxes and carbon taxes. The Department of Energy has estimated that electricity prices could rise 86 percent -- and gasoline prices 53 percent.

The purpose of these punitive costs is to drive up the cost of modern living in order to force you to drastically change your lifestyle. That is the diabolical plan behind this restructuring scheme. Cars banned. Industry curtailed. Housing smaller. Family size controlled.

Every single product that is produced with the use of energy will increase in price. This includes items such as aspirin, contact lenses, and tooth paste. A study by the Department of Energy's Argonne Laboratory finds that the treaty will cripple six U.S. industries including paper, steel, petroleum refining, chemical manufacturing, aluminum, and cement. That about sums up the economy.

Global Raid on American Wealth

But perhaps you still are not convinced. Maybe you still cling to the idea that such drastic action is necessary -- that those pushing the global warming agenda are truly in a panic over global warming and are just trying to find a solution.

If you are one of these people, ask yourself: Why does the Kyoto Protocol only bind developed nations to draconian emission levels?

Undeveloped Third-World nations will be free to produce whatever they want. These will include China, India, Brazil, and Mexico. Yet 82 percent of the projected emissions growth in future years will come from these countries.

Now ask yourself: If the Kyoto Climate Change Protocol is all about protecting the environment -- then how come it doesn't cover everybody? The truth, of course, is that the treaty is really about redistribution of the wealth. The wealth of the United States is, and has always been, the target. The new scheme to grab the loot is through environmental scare tactics.

And international corporations, who owe allegiance to no nation, will bolt America and move their factories, lock, stock, and computer chip to those Third World countries where they will be free to carry on production. But that means the same emissions will be coming out of the jungles of South America instead of Chicago. So where is the protection of the environment? You see, it's not about that, is it?

Still not convinced? One more thing. Hidden in the small print of the treaty is a provision that calls for the "harmonizing of patent laws." Now, robbing a nation of its patent protection is an interesting tactic for protecting the environment, don't you think?

And there’s still more looting of the U.S. treasury planned. Supporters of the Kyoto Protocol also want industrialized nations to subsidize poor countries’ adaptation to global warming to the tune of $73 billion per year. Obtaining such subsidies will be an interesting trick after the U.S. economy has been destroyed by the treaty. Looters rarely have the ability to think that far in advance.

Don’t think this devastation can’t happen. The UN and the European Union have exposed their hatred for the United States. They envy our wealth and think that legalized theft, rather than sound economic policy, is the way to obtain it.

The fact is that one person now stands between the global warming jackals and economic sanity -- George W. Bush. Will he stand firm in his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol? Or will he capitulate to massive international pressure and sell America’s soul?

Tom DeWeese is publisher and editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, VA.

UPDATE:

The article below is pertaining to the Global Warming issue. This only further affirms the truth about Earth's climate.



Prophets, False Prophets and Profiteers

by Paul Driessen
17 December 2004

Over 18,000 scientists have signed a petition saying they see “no convincing scientific evidence” that humans are disrupting the earth’s climate.

Some ten thousand delegates, scientists, activists, politicians and journalists have convened in Argentina for the COP-10 confab on “solutions” to the theoretical problem of “dangerous” and “catastrophic” global climate change. Months of hype and consternation preceded the event, to pressure the United States and Australia into ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

The Day After Tomorrow and interminable activist group press releases provided appropriate horror movie scenarios. A hearing chaired by Senator John McCain promoted his prophecy that a climate Armageddon is near -- and his legislative palliative.

A new report warned that North Pole temperatures are rising. Science magazine asserted that not one of 928 studies supported the position that climate change is naturally occurring.

UK science advisor Sir David King said global warming is a greater threat than terrorism, and greenhouse emissions will have to be cut by 80% by 2050 to avoid massive coastal flooding due to melting Greenland ice sheets. European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy hinted that the EU would give preferential access to its markets for poor countries that accept Kyoto.

The hysteria and caterwauling swamped essential facts.

Actual satellite and weather balloon data -- as well as historic and geologic records of numerous warming and cooling cycles -- contradict computer models, theories and assertions that humans are causing disastrous weather events and climate shifts. Arctic temperatures were even higher in the 1930s, before cooling again for several decades. Science’s editors didn’t mention countless studies that analyze natural warming and cooling cycles -- or the fact that 18,000 scientists have signed a petition saying they see “no convincing scientific evidence” that humans are disrupting the earth’s climate.

All the countries in the world together are responsible for less than 3% of the Earth’s total greenhouse gas emissions (the rest are natural), and the U.S. emits only 1/5 of this. The Kyoto treaty would force the U.S. to slash emissions and fossil fuel use by some 25% over the next decade -- an impossible task that would cost millions of jobs and over $300 billion annually, according to government and other studies.

Even perfect compliance with Kyoto would keep average global temperatures from rising only 0.3 degrees less than they would by 2050 in the absence of a climate treaty. Actually stabilizing greenhouse gases and temperatures would require 19 to 40 “successful climate treaties” -- causing ruinous social and economic impacts, and diverting resources from solvable problems like AIDS, malaria, poverty and poor sanitation.

What then energizes all these false prophets of doom and their demands for immediate drastic action? Simply put, profits and power.

Just the 12 largest environmental lobby groups in the U.S. had a combined budget of $2 billion in 2003. Collectively, the global environmental movement has a war chest of up to $8-billion a year. That buys a lot of influence, but apparently it’s never enough. As National Audubon Society chief operating officer Dan Beard has admitted, “What you get in your mailbox is a never-ending stream of crisis-related shrill material designed to evoke emotions, so that you will sit down and write a check.”

Global warming is big business. The U.S. government ladled out $15 billion on global warming research and “education” between 1992 and 2000. The United Nations spent billions more, as did the European Union, and big foundations provided hundreds of millions more.

Unfortunately, most government money goes to researchers who support the position that human-caused climate change is a serious problem. Foundation money does likewise, for operations like the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Climate Change Center, and an International Institute for Sustainable Development $700,000 study of “how farmers in India may be vulnerable” to problems supposedly caused by “economic globalization and climate change.”

“Scientists must be allowed to conclude that we don’t have a problem,” MIT professor Richard Lindzen insists, and funding should not be based on politics and preconceptions. What’s needed are nonpartisan funding mechanisms to support climate research.

Climate treaties are driven by near-religious convictions, Lindzen and author-producer-molecular biologist Michael Crichton observed. This further politicizes science, makes rational debate unlikely, and keeps people perpetually anxious -- and in desperate search of saviors.

“To capture the public imagination,” global warming scientist-activist and former global cooling false prophet Stephen Schneider once said, “we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”

Former Boston Globe editor Ross Gelbspan urged a Washington, DC audience in July 2000: “Not only do journalists not have a responsibility to report what skeptical scientists have to say about global warming. They have a responsibility not to report what these scientists say.” In a similar vein, Time science editor Charles Alexander told a Smithsonian Institution conference: “I would freely admit that on [global warming] we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy.”

Many climate alarmists see the Kyoto and other treaties as instruments of international power politics. Ultimately, they seek to give activists and centralized government bureaucrats control over fossil fuel use, economic growth, lifestyles, housing and transportation.

EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstroem says Kyoto “is not a simple environmental issue, where you can say scientists are not unanimous. This is about international relations, this is about the economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big businesses throughout the world. You have to understand what is at stake and that is why it is serious,” she declaimed. And French President Jacques Chirac has termed the Kyoto Protocol “the first component of authentic global governance.”

Even now, proposals are being floated in Argentina that would allocate the right to emit carbon on a per capita basis throughout the world. Eventually, the scheme would ensure that every person has an “equitable” right to the same (minuscule) amount of energy -- whatever global bureaucrats and activists determine is “appropriate” and “sustainable.”

“Environmentalists are quick to accuse their opponents in business of having vested interests,” The Economist has observed. “But their own incomes, their fame and their very existence can depend on supporting the most alarming versions of every environmental scare. Pressure groups, journalists, and fame seekers will no doubt continue to peddle ecological catastrophes at an undiminishing speed.”

Actually, industry has much stronger motivations for honesty than do the activists, Daniel Koshland, Jr. noted when he was Science magazine editor. “Businesses today have product liability and can incur legal damages if they place a dangerous product on the market.” Environmental pressure groups “have no such constraints.”

All this should be on everyone’s mind -- in developed and developing countries alike -- as COP-10 attendees debate the merits and demerits of Quixotic proposals to “control” the world’s climate.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death.





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