by Richard T. Ritenbaugh
CGG Weekly, June 7, 2002
"The truth, which is indestructible, has a way of accumulating against pride and arrogance, and then sweeping them from its path."
Mark Helprin
That humanity causes global warming is a hoax.
With all we hear in the news, this sounds like an overstatement. An objective look at the cold, hard facts of global climate change, however, shows it to be true. That the Bush administration flip-flopped on the matter this past week indicates that this is not a scientific issue but a political one. The presentation to the United Nations of an Environmental Protection Agency report on climate—in which human activity is partially blamed for rising temperatures—seems to have been an administration trial balloon to see if Bush's base would back him on the issue. The balloon was found to be made of lead.
It was only thirty years ago that the concern among environmental types was global cooling. A "new ice age" was predicted to fall upon us within the next century, and wooly mammoths would make a comeback. Drastic government intervention would be needed to stave off this threat to all life on the planet. Billions of people would starve due to shrinking arable lands. Shorelines would recede, destroying pristine estuaries and other wetlands.
Alas, this histrionic movement melted under overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. So environmentalists decided to use this proof to their advantage and did a one-eighty. Since science showed that the trend in mean temperatures was upward (ever so slightly), they figured they could reach the same ends by promoting global warming. And they nearly pulled it off.
The environmental movement has never been about truth or facts. It has always focused on political results: restrictions on free enterprise (business), government oversight and regulation, massive funding of environmental causes and studies, and implementation of liberal social policies (like animal rights, diversity, multiculturalism, etc.). As a result, coupled with a "the end justifies the means" mentality, the "science" that undergirds the global warming myth is junk.
Just last month, a team of international scientists met on Capitol Hill to expose the absence of real proof that global warming exists. These scientists challenged the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections—that the earth would warm up between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius in the next century—on several fronts.
First, Hartwig Volz, a German geophysicist, dismisses the projections as "fairy tales." S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist from the University of Virginia, adds that the IPCC assumes "extreme scenarios of population growth and fossil fuel consumption" in its projections.
Second, Dr. Ulrich Berner, a German geologist, cites global temperature variations in the past as evidence that human activity is unrelated to climate change. He also explains that extensive analysis of carbon dioxide concentrations show that elevated CO2 levels do not necessarily lead to climate change. He says, "There are numerous temperature changes which are not mimicked by the CO2 concentration."
Third, temperature readings from the last sixty years show "no appreciable warming since 1940," says Singer. "This would indicate that the human effects on climate must be quite small." He suggests that the primary influence on climate change is the sun. The sun has been shown to go through long-term changes in activity, varying the amount of radiation aimed at the earth and causing the mean temperature to rise or fall. These shifts have a far greater effect on climate than greenhouse gases. Patrick Michaels, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, estimates that if nations enacted every point of the Kyoto treaty, the world's average temperature would not decrease by a half degree over the next fifty years.
This is not to say we should not be concerned about pollution and man's poor stewardship of earth's resources. We certainly have a responsibility to dress and keep what God has given us (Genesis 2:15). Ultimately, God warns those who would harm the earth that He will avenge the earth for man's abuses (Revelation 11:18). However, our concern for our environment should be based on truth, pure motives, and respect for God's creation, not on selfish, political aims.