Daily Press Victorville,ca 2-28-08
CO M M E N TA RY
Cold water on ‘global warming’
THOMAS SOWELL
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.
It has almost become something of a joke wh e n s o m e “ g l o b a l war ming” conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather.
But stampedes and hysteria are no joke — and creating stampedes and hysteria has become a major activity of those hyping a global warming “crisis.”
They mobilize like-minded people from a variety of occupations, call them all “scientists” and then claim that “all” the experts agree on a global warming crisis.
Their biggest argument is that there is no argument.
A whole cottage industry has sprung up among people who get grants, government agencies that get appropriations, politicians who get publicity and the perpetually indignant who get something new to be indignant about. It gives teachers something to talk about in school instead of teaching.
Those who bother to check the facts often find that not all those who are called scientists are really scientists and not all of those who are scientists are specialists in climate. But who bothers to check facts these days?
A new and very different conference on global warming will be held in New York City, under the sponsorship of the Heartland Institute, from March 2 to March 4 — weather permitting.
It is called an “International Conference on Climate Change.” Its subtitle is “Global Warming: Truth or Swindle?” Among those present will be professors of climatology, along with scientists in other fields and people from other professions.
They come from universities in England, Hungary and Australia, as well as from the United States and Canada, and include, among other dignitaries, the president of the Czech Republic.
There will be 98 speakers and 400 participants.
The theme of the conference is that “there is no scientific consensus on the causes or likely consequences of global warming.”
Many of the participants in this conference are people who have already expressed skepticism about either the prevailing explanations of current climate change or the dire predictions about future climate change.
These include authors of such books as “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years” by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, and “Shattered Consensus,” edited by Patrick J. Michaels.
This will be one of the rare opportunities for the media to hear the other side of the story — for those old-fashioned journalists who still believe that their job is to inform the public, rather than promote an agenda.
The subtitle of the upcoming conference — “Global Warming: Truth or Swindle?” — is also the title of a British television program that is now available on DVD in the United States. It is a devastating debunking of the current “global warming” hysteria.
Nobody denies that there is such a thing as a greenhouse effect. If there were not, the side of the planet facing away from the sun would be freezing every night.
There is not even a lot of controversy over temperature readings. What is fundamentally at issue are the explanations, implications and extrapolations of these temperature readings.
The party line of those who say that we are heading for a global warming crisis of epic proportions is that human activities generating carbon dioxide are key factors responsible for the warming that has taken place in recent times.
The problem with this reasoning is that the temperatures rose first and then the carbon dioxide levels rose. Some scientists say that the warming created the increased carbon dioxide, rather than vice versa.
Many natural factors, including variations in the amount of heat put out by the sun, can cause the earth to heat or cool.
The bigger problem is that this has long since become a crusade rather than an exercise in evidence or logic. Too many people are too committed to risk it all on a roll of the dice, which is what turning to empirical evidence is.
Those who have a big stake in global warming hysteria are unlikely to show up at the conference in New York, and unfortunately that includes much of the media.
SOWELL
aaww Crash, that’s disappointing and enlightening at the same time.
Oh for a return to the days of ancient Greece when philosophers who were proved wrong were required to drink hemlock when proved wrong. We would hear far less from idiots like this one if it were.
What is hysteria is the debate surrounding global warming. Notice that your own quote is, “there is no scientific consensus on the causes or likely consequences of global warming.” It does not say that there isn’t global warming. So just for a moment, let’s throw the whole “global warming” question out the window. The proposals for reducing global warming (whether it be real or not) are to: reduce our use of polluting fuels, to retain more land and forests that are protected from development, to take the uncontrolled and rampant increase in the human species seriously and what effects this is having on our natural environment. Whether you believe in global warming or not, the solutions put forth are unassailable. Do you believe we should not do those things? I can’t imagine any thinking human being would not. So, if we improve our relationship with our environment, and global warming is not a threat, we still benefit.
Do they call it the Hoover Institute because everything there sucks? hahahahahaha
Old Hoover joke, couldn’t resist.
You can count on Thomas Sowell to hit all the skeptic chords. There is nothing in that article that hasn’t been discussed here before. If Michaels or Singer or any of the skeptics had anything relevant to say to the science, they wouldn’t have to organize their own skeptic conference. Instead, they would be giving presentations at the American Geophysical Union Fall and Spring meetings, the AMS annual meeting, the IUGG/EGU symposium etc. But they’re not.
Sowell is 78, do you think he really gives a crap what happens in 20 years?
Very credible…
It’s posed as an “International Conference on Climate Change” with the predetermined outcome “there is no scientific consensus on the causes or likely consequences of global warming.” It’s called preaching to the choir.
Maybe if they worked more to get published peer reviewed science…oh wait, their science didn’t stand up to peer review, so that’s why they’re going to be there.
Are you doubters actually unable to comprehend the difference in the qualitative information between an opinion piece by someone with no science training and a peer-reviewed scientific journal?
Do you actually think Sowell is even remotely unbiased in this issue? He’s got a record going back years of being ideologically aligned against any environmental issues. If you want to post an op-ed piece, at least try to find one from someone with a little scientific knowledge who doesn’t have such a blatant bias for big business and against the environment.
nice try, but you will never get anyone on this forum to look at any data objectively. its emotion driven right brain liberals against pragmatic (show me indisputable evidence) left brain conservatives.
its the same on any issue. cold logic vs pure emotion. apparently where you stand on any issue is determined at birth.
it seems its always been this way. for example the pre colombian native Americans (osage)divided themselves into sky people & earth people even when living in the same villages or communities.