So Much for Global Warming

Forerunner, "WorldWatch," January-February 2009

If nothing else, it would be great theater to watch Al Gore and all the other apostles of global warming have to explain before Congress why America should spend billions of dollars on "green" initiatives like "cap and trade" when the data show the earth has not experienced overall warming since 2001. Of course, this will never happen because, as Gore and the mainstream media have already stated, the debate is over. Global warming, caused by human activity, is a fact and here to stay, whether we like it or not and all facts to the contrary notwithstanding.

Other than this "debate is over" statement being an out-and-out lie, it is audacious and tyrannical in its dismissal of the opposing viewpoint and its adherents. The idea of imminent and catastrophic climate change has become so politically correct that any naysaying is summarily condemned as heresy—and the naysayer, be he genius or merely commonsensical, is hysterically tagged as a "climate-change skeptic," a label that will kill any of his hopes for promotion, grant money, or media attention, should he desire it.

But the rest of us, the average Joe and Jane Public, have noticed that the weather patterns over the past few years have not supported all the hot air coming from the global warming crowd. In fact, Lord Christopher Monckton, who once advised British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, reported in his keynote address to the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change that temperatures "have been plummeting at a rate equivalent to 11 Fahrenheit degrees per century throughout the four years since Gore launched his mawkish, sci-fi comedy horror B-movie [An Inconvenient Truth]."¹ In other words, the earth is cooling faster than it was warming!

How has this happened? Clearly, despite humanity's tendency to pollute and corrupt various areas on the planet—a tendency God promises to punish mankind for (Revelation 11:18)—the ability of man to effect drastic, catastrophic climate change, short of a nuclear exchange, is nominal. While many scientists claim that routine human activities like driving automobiles and mowing lawns cause global warming, they have so far been unable to marshal the facts to support this assertion. Even adding bovine flatulence to the mix—an action gaining support among greens worldwide—cannot account for climate change.

David mused, though admittedly on another subject, "What is man?" (Psalm 8:4). Next to the great processes of nature that God designed and that we still do not understand or appreciate, mankind stands puny and weak. It would take a force of far greater energy and magnitude to produce sudden, global climate change. That colossal force is our own sun.

Recent observations of the sun, compared to historical records of sunspot activity, tell us what is actually happening. John L. Casey, Director of the Space and Science Research Center, states in a January 1, 2009, letter to then-President-elect Barack Obama's nominated science adviser, Dr. John Holdren, and nominated NOAA administrator, Dr. Jane Lubchenco: "[G]lobal warming is over; a new cold climate has arrived."

Casey's letter explains that our instruments are detecting no significant sunspot or solar flare activity. Solar activity is a measure of the sun's overall power output, which varies in cycles of 11 years. Yet, in this cycle, the sun has been alarmingly quiet—so quiet that some scientists wonder if we are entering a new Maunder Minimum, a climate event that signals frigid winters and cold summers and that can last as long as a century. Writes Casey:

According to national and international sources that monitor the Sun, what is happening on and in the Sun is nothing short of record setting, astounding, and at the same time worrisome. The solar wind is at its lowest level in fifty years. The surface movement on the Sun has slowed to record rates and according to NASA's previous announcements is "off the bottom of the charts." Most telling is the current prolonged lack of sunspots between the normal 11 year solar cycles 23 and 24 which is about to set a one hundred year record for time without sunspots. NASA also has long since forecast that cycle 25 will be "one of the weakest in centuries." All of these events in combination leave little doubt that a "solar hibernation" lasting several decades delivering the coldest weather in over two centuries has in fact arrived.²

The unfortunate—and perhaps ultimately tragic—reality is that these scientific facts make no difference to those pushing the global warming agenda. The reason for this political shrug of the shoulders is that for a long time the environmental movement has been less interested in nature than in money and control. Its adherents have rather used nature to their advantage to extort money from both the public and private sectors and to wrest political control to force draconian changes on governments, particularly the United States. That nature is not cooperating by cooling instead of warming has forced the environmental movement cynically to change its focus from "global warming" to "climate change."

This means that its aims to legislate "cap and trade" rules will move forward. Its insistence on often unreliable³ compact fluorescent light bulbs—which due to containing five milligrams of mercury are themselves hazardous if broken, and thus they cannot simply be thrown away⁴—will continue. Though on-site measurements show the opposite, its hysterical claims that sea levels are rising and that various Pacific islands such as the Maldives and Tuvalu will succumb to the waves will still be brought forward as "proof" of catastrophic climate change.⁵ And most famously, pictures of polar bears on supposedly shrinking icebergs will still be used to tug at our heartstrings (of course, data that the polar bear population is actually holding steady or even rising slightly will go unmentioned).⁶

In the meantime, we might do well to buy a good coat.

Endnotes

¹ Lord Christopher Monckton, "Great Is Truth, and Mighty Above All Things," Telegraph.co.uk, March 12, 2009 (http://www.heartland.org/full/24881/Great_Is_Truth_and_Mighty_Above_All_Things.html).
² John L. Casey, Space and Science Research Center Press Release, January 8, 2009 (http://www.spaceandscience.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/ssrcpressrelease12009.doc).
³ Leora Broydo Vestel, "Do New Bulbs Save Energy if They Don't Work?" NYTimes.com, March 27, 2009 (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/business/energy-environment/28bulbs.html?_r=2&hp).
⁴ Joseph Farah, "Consumers in dark over risks of new light bulbs," WND.com, March 16, 2007 (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55213).
⁵ Christopher Booker, "Rise of sea levels is 'the greatest lie ever told,'" Telegraph.co.uk, March 28, 2009 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html).
⁶ Juliet O'Neill, "Canada not holding back on polar bear protection: Prentice," Canwest News Service, March 19, 2009(http://www.canada.com/Technology/story.html?id=1406966).

Climate Change and World Peace

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All hail Al Gore, the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize!

This is the near-unanimous cry of the mainstream media news hawkers this morning. Gore—former U.S. Vice President and darling of liberals, Hollywood, and tree-huggers everywhere—received the Peace Prize for preaching the gospel of manmade climate change around the world and urging radical measures to counteract the "imminent" threat. Supporters here in the U.S. are hoping that this honor will convince Gore to reconsider running for President in 2008.

Gore shares the prestigious award with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the infamous IPCC. Gore lauds the IPCC as the "world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis." The vast majority of news reports on this story will ignore the fact that the IPCC's reports on climate change have been repeatedly shown to be U.N. policy statements hiding behind a tissue of dubious scientific research. A quick comparison of the last several reports by the panel reveals the IPCC backtracking on its estimates on the severity of global warming—to the point that its projections now fit comfortably into historical warming and cooling trends. After removing the hysteria caused by activists like Al Gore, the global warming "threat" turns out to be little more than a normal temperature fluctuation.

Gore himself, along with his so-called documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, has recently come under fire for false and misleading statements. London's Daily Mail reports that a British High Court judge ruled this week that the movie is "alarmist," "exaggerated," and "one-sided." Further, showing the film in schools disregards British education policies unless accompanied by guidance notes to balance its partisan stance. While opining that An Inconvenient Truth was "broadly accurate" on climate change, High Court Justice Burton listed nine scientific errors asserted as facts in the film. These included the estimated rise of sea levels (Gore claimed a catastrophic rise of twenty feet in the "near future"), the correlation between the increase in the CO₂ level and temperature, and his declarations that global warming has caused or will cause the shut down of the Gulf Stream, the drying of Lake Chad, the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro, the evacuation of Pacific Ocean atolls, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, the bleaching of coral reefs, and the drowning of polar bears. Although the film's supporters will never admit it, the judge's findings, which the Daily Mail dubs "inconvenient untruths," effectively gut the documentary of its most essential, emotional points.

In the months leading up to the bestowal of the prize on Gore and the IPCC, there was little doubt about who would win it. Several other candidates had been under consideration by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, but Gore was the frontrunner from the beginning of the process. According to its press release, the Committee's reason for awarding the Peace Prize to Gore and the IPCC is "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." In justifying its choice, the Committee attempts to link the prospect of "extensive climate changes [that] may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind" with the possibility that such change "may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. . . . There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, with and between states" (emphasis ours).

So, the most prestigious award in all the world is given because the Nobel Committee, determining from backpedaling IPCC reports that manmade climate change is real, foresees that it might cause groups to migrate, compete, and engage in conflict over resources. As the Committee also wrote, "Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds." Such is the tenuous link between climate change and world peace. Rather than awarding the prize to someone or some group that is actually doing something now to foster peace between peoples, the Committee chose to laud Gore and the IPCC for perhaps reducing future conflicts by increasing awareness that climate change may disturb the present harmony among nations and ethnic groups over resources.

It appears that the members of the Nobel Committee live in a sealed environment cut off from the real world. There are many real conflicts raging right now over earth's precious resources. In fact, one can argue that the world's spotlighted conflict, the Iraq War and its aftermath, is a struggle over Middle East oil, the fuel of the world's economy. In addition, the migrations of workers from poor to rich countries—for example, Hispanics into America and Muslims into Europe—are related to a lack of resources in their homelands and an abundance of them in the developed nations, and they are creating conflict. Yet, none of these present-day confrontations have been set off by manmade climate change, today's cause célèbre, so the supposed prevention of hypothetical future conflicts becomes the reason for Gore's selection. What a peacemaker he might be!

What a mockery of peacemaking! The Nobel Peace Prize has degenerated into a political farce to legitimatize select globalist ideas and movements. The climate change mantra is not being used to bring peace but to assert control over human activity, to urge the ratification and enforcement of treaties, laws, and regulations that limit rights and progress, especially in industrialized, developed nations in the West. Peace is liberating, but the politics of green are ultimately to gain power over large segments of humanity in the name of environmental sustainability. Such control and power in human hands will not bring peace but more war.

God says, "The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace" (Isaiah 59:8). Human nature makes it impossible for mankind to make a lasting peace; men and women are always too willing to fight for their self-interests (see James 4:1-3). Peace will come to mankind only when Christ returns in power and, ironically, forces humanity to live His way of peace. As Zechariah 9:9-10 says of Him, "Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation. . . . [T]he battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be 'from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.'" This is the real, glorious peace prize we seek.

Bad Weather Is Not Climate Change

Most of the United States suffered severe—indeed, paralyzing—heat this past week, relieved by a cold front that slogged its way across the nation at a snail's pace. Charlotte, known for its sauna-like summer weather, endured consecutive highs of 100° on Tuesday and Wednesday, which, although they were not record highs, were debilitating to just about everyone. The water in the kids' pool in the backyard was as hot as bathwater, and rubber-soled shoes felt as if they were melting after just a few minutes exposure to the asphalt. We think that is bad—temperatures reached as high as 124° in parts of Arizona!

The U.S. is not alone in its weather woes. The United Kingdom's Telegraph newspaper reported:

At least 200 people were feared dead last night after two days of freak monsoon rains flooded India's Maharastra state, leaving up to 100,000 stranded in Bombay, the country's financial capital.

Aerial photos of the city showed thousands of cars left abandoned along dual carriageways which were turned into rivers after 37 inches of rain—the average for the entire month of July—fell on the city in a single day on Tuesday.

. . . the rain [was] forecast to continue for another 48 hours. . . . (Peter Foster, "37 inches of rain in one day," July 28, 2005)

The Telegraph also reported on a rarity in the island nation: "At least 12 people have been injured, three seriously, after a mini-tornado struck part of south Birmingham. The tornado felled large trees, overturned cars and left parts of the Moseley and Kings Heath areas of the city strewn with glass, masonry and furniture" ("At least 12 hurt as tornado hits Birmingham," July 28, 2005). Though tornadoes can occur anywhere the conditions are favorable, one expects to hear about them mowing down parts of rural Oklahoma or Kansas, not the UK's second-largest city.

Other parts of the world are experiencing crazy weather as well. In Europe, this summer's severe weather has killed dozens of people. Heavy flooding has occurred from Germany to Romania, yet wildfires are being ignited by hot, dry weather from Sweden to Portugal. In addition, this year's hurricane season is off to a record start in that there have already been seven named storms (Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Dennis, Emily, Franklin, and Gert)—and the peak of the season is still another month away.

Nevertheless, despite these weather extremes, there is no logical reason to believe that the world is experiencing radical climate change, as some environmental activists and politicians would like us to suppose. Such an assumption ignores the basic difference between weather and climate. Any reputable dictionary will explain that weather is "the state of the atmosphere at a given time," while climate is "the average course or condition of the weather at a place usually over a period of years." In other words, the primary difference between weather and climate is duration: Weather is short-term and climate is long-term. Thus, no spate of particularly bad weather is conclusive evidence of climate change.

Perhaps seeing this in analogy will help us to understand. Let us imagine that qualified doctors at several prestigious hospitals in various places around the globe report that they had delivered babies with twelve fingers. If we were like the radical environmentalists, we would immediately call a press conference to inform the world that the human species is on the brink of worldwide, detrimental, evolutionary change, and that if all the nations of the world did not band together now and voluntarily engage in expensive programs to forestall these terrible mutations, future generations will suffer. In addition, individual citizens should "think globally and act locally," and report all sightings of twelve-fingered people to authorities for prosecution under the new anti-mutation legislation being proposed by sympathetic lawmakers.

Ridiculous, right? Yes, but very much in tune with how radical environmentalists have acted over the past few decades concerning climate change. Indeed, extra-fingered babies are born all over the world, though it is not common. This condition is called polydactylism, and it occurs once in about every 500 births. However, though it occurs, it is not logical to assume that it presages radical, imminent, evolutionary development—good or bad—for the human race. It is merely a birth defect.

This is where the environmentalists and the scientists who support them have gone astray. They have made an illogical assumption from climate models that rare extremes of weather indicate future, catastrophic climate change. It is a non-sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow"). Terrible heat waves in summer do not mean global warming, nor do bitterly cold winters portend the next ice age.

Climate is far too complex for such simplistic reasoning. Trends over decades or centuries are far more reliable, and honest scientists will admit that the current warming trend is gradual (rising only tenths of a degree) and expected (we are coming off the Little Ice Age that lasted from approximately 1350 to 1850). They will also acknowledge, perhaps more grudgingly, that human activity through the use of fossil fuels cannot make a significant impact on climate, and that solar and volcanic activities are far more likely to be the causes of large swings in temperature and precipitation.

Remember, God may have called us as weak and foolish, but He does not want us to remain so. He warns us to "test all things" (I Thessalonians 5:21), not just to accept them as given. Further, he exhorts us to "shun . . . vain babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness" (II Timothy 2:16) and to "avoid foolish disputes, . . . for they are unprofitable and useless" (Titus 3:9). In other words, we should not become caught up in the world's futile, godless debates because they will only lead us from the truth.

Besides, the Bible itself tells us that the hand of God, not some climatic disaster, will bring this present, evil world to a crashing halt.