The United States of Esoterica

Suspending Disaster: The Myth Of Global Warming
Green groups such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and Earth First are using their influence to persuade people that an environmental disaster of historic proportions is just around the corner. As Barbara Mass of the Pan African Conservation Group succinctly puts it: "I think we're going to drown in our own muck."

Environmentalist thinking is now widely accepted in the West. However, many scientists argue that what the Greens say about global warming and pollution is wrong. Professor Wilfred Beckerman, a former member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, was himself an enthusiastic environmentalist until he started examining the facts. He told Against Nature: "Within a few months of looking at the statistical data, I realised that most of my concerns about the environment were based on false information and scare stories."

According to Piers Corbyn, Director of Weather Action, many scientists do not accept the idea that pollution is causing global warming. Environmentalists claim that world temperatures have risen one degree Fahrenheit in the past century, but Corbyn points out that the period they take as their starting point — around 1880 — was colder than average. What's more, the timing of temperature changes does not appear to support the theory of global warming. Most of the rise came before 1940 —before human-caused emissions of 'greenhouse' gases became significant.

According to the Greens, during the post-war boom global warming should have pushed temperatures up. But the opposite happened. "As a matter of the fact, the decrease in temperature, which was very noticeable in the 60s and 70s, led many people to fear that we would be going into another ice age," remembers Fred Singer, former Chief Scientist with the US Weather Program.

Even in recent times, the temperature has not behaved as it should according to global warming theory. Over the last eight years, temperature in the southern hemisphere has actually been falling. Moreover, says Piers Corbyn, "When proper satellite measurements are done of world temperatures, they do not show any increase whatsoever over the last 20 years."

But Greens refuse to accept they have could have been proved wrong. Now they say global warming can involve temperature going both up and down.

"Global warming is above all global climatic destabilisation," says Edward Goldsmith, editor of the Ecologist, "with extremes of cold and heat when you don't expect it. You can't predict climate any more. You get terrible droughts in certain cases; sometimes you get downpours. In Egypt, I think, they had a rainfall for the first time in history — they suddenly had an incredible downpour. Water pouring down in places where it's never rained before. And then you get droughts in another area. So it's going to be extremely unpredictable."

Scientists also point out that nature produces far more greenhouse gases than we do. For example, when the Mount Pinatubo volcano erupted, within just a few hours it had thrown into the atmosphere 30 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide— almost twice as much as all the factories, power plants and cars in the United States do in a whole year. Oceans emit 90 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, every year. Decaying plants throw up another 90 billion tonnes, compared to just six billion tonnes a year from humans.

What's more, 100 million years ago, there was six times as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as there is now, yet the temperature then was marginally cooler than it is today. Many scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide doesn't even affect climate.

Although many environmentalists have been forced to accept much of the scientific evidence against global warming, they still argue that it is better to be safe than sorry. So they continue to use global warming as a reason to oppose industrialisation and economic growth.

It is amazing how many carbon emmissions we are producing on the rest of the planets in the solar system. That does have to be the answer to why the rest of the planets are heating up also, right?

SUV Smog travels a long way.

I don't know about global warming, but I really hate saying we are in a cycle,

What cycle? It seems like one would have to know what the cycle is before saying we in it.

Hey were in a wegit.
Whats a wegit?
I don't know, but we're in one.

sound stupid doesn't it?

I believe "the cycle" is if by some way the warm current waters ceased flowing toward Europe, Europe would enter a mini-ice age. Current studies suggest that it is a possibility and that this current conveyor belt in the North Atlantic is unpredictable. Since the end of the last ice age, the arctic ice cap has continued to melt, allowing fresh water into the North Atlantic. If too much fresh water enters the ocean (thereby diluting its salt content and keeping it less dense) it would not sink and join the return currents at the bottom. It would remain where it is, blocking the warm currents from entering, and altering the climate of Europe.