Monday, July 03, 2006

Chilling Out Global Warming Hype

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I was contacted by Crew Creative Advertising to review “Global Warming, What You Need To Know,” with host Tom Brokaw, which will premier on the Discovery Channel at 8 pm, July 16. I have no idea why I was anointed to review this presentation.

As usual, I will not approach this task with an empty – I mean open – mind. Unlike most Americans, before I view what I believe will be a companion piece to Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” I am going to study a lot of material authored by global warming nay-Sayers. In other words, I have already made up my mind, I am marshalling all the forces I can against their man-made global warming hypothesis, and I am pledging that I won’t change my mind. That is, I won’t unless they hit me with something totally new and powerful that destroys all the counter arguments.

Purists would say I should approach my responsibilities with an open mind. However, I am very confident that this documentary was prepared with the intent of demonstrating that global warming exists, and man is the cause. In other words, they had closed minds, just like mine.

Why is my mind closed? The main reason is that I have seen many studies that show that weather has exhibited great variability for a very long period. In the not too distant past global weather has been warmer. In the not too distant past global weather has been colder. In the distant past it has been both a lot hotter and a lot colder. I think that very few scientists believe that human activity caused the last Ice Age, but an Ice Age there was. Then there was global warming, long before there was significant man-caused combustion of fossil fuels.

One thousand years ago we had the Medieval Warm Period. Then, during the past five centuries we had a Little Ice Age, followed by a warming period 1919 to about 1940, then a brief cooling period into the 1970's followed by more warming. Through it all, surface temperatures increased about one degree Fahrenheit. Conveniently, that is about the amount of increase that would be expected when temperature records are recorded at stations adjacent to rapidly expanding cities. For those who don’t catch the implications of temperature readings next to growing cities, let me spell it out – less trees and open fields, more concrete and asphalt, higher temperature readings. D’oh.

Al Gore’s much ballyhooed movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” is more notable for the truths that are inconvenient to his global warming thesis that he leaves out, because they contradict or negate what he presents. Also known as lying by omission.

Al Gore claims there is a consensus among scientists that global warming is man made. Not so, as this Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal article proves.

The “man is responsible” global warming crowd have always been big about trumpeting a consensus of scientific agreement, aided by self-serving journals like Science Magazine that refused to retract a faulty study proving “consensus.”

After eight years as Bill Clinton’s vice president, when he and Bill did nothing to solve global warming, Al Gore now finds lots of easy ways to solve the problem now that he is no longer responsible. It’s a pity he didn’t get the job done when he would have been the one criticized for setting our economy and lifestyle back one hundred years.

What I think Al Gore and Tom Brokaw are attempting is to stifle debate on global warming by unleashing a torrent to drown out dissenting opinions. What I’m doing is helping to chill out the global warming hype.

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