As a certified “global warming skeptic,” I take no delight in those who are crowing that this recent cold winter is proof that our global temperatures are reversing and that we are entering a period of global cooling.

My position …

It is not that I deny the phenomenon of global climate change, it is simply that I do not believe that the United States should undertake public policy actions which may result in higher taxes and the curtailment of our freedoms based on scientific theory and imperfect computer models.

I do believe that climate is cyclical and we do not know the periodicity or the amplitude of the cycles well enough to project change. I am skeptical of those who project linear trend lines as I am of political and commercial opportunists who are attempting to use science to pursue their own agendas.

And, while I have a lot of respect for the technical expertise of the scientists and programmers who are designing, testing and evaluating climate models, I believe that they are nowhere close to a unified model that has a reliable predictive capability. Yes, the models spit out numbers, but it will be years, possibly hundreds of years, before we see any confirmatory trend information.

So before those who believe global warming does not exist or that we are in a period of global cooling, I would like to remind everybody that the long term trend makes the results of political actions, such as the carbon cap and trade system, virtually impossible to measure as the results of man’s puny actions will still fall within the natural variability of the climate cycle.

Common sense …

In my opinion, common sense and the continued funding of climate-related projects which are devoid of political influence is the best course of action, especially in today’s troublesome economy.

Here is a chart released by our friends at NOAA. As you can see, the latest plot indicates a downward action – and we will need to wait, at least a few years, to see if this action is simply a regression to an relatively unknown long-term mean or a regression to a seemingly shorter-term mean as shown on this 100-year plot. (Note: this is not a plot of global temperatures, only temperatures within the contiguous United States)

No matter what the short-term outcome, I believe man should be reducing all pollution that is contaminating our ground, water and atmosphere – and avoid providing political schemes to help gross polluters continue their polluting ways by purchasing indulgences that ostensibly satisfy some celestial pollution bookkeeper. The process appears to be as corrupt as the old popes who sold indulgences to the wealthy so they could sin in peace.

I also believe that we should be spending more time, effort and money on environmental challenges of improving our response to natural conditions occurring on this diversified Earth: stronger shelters which may mitigate damages from natural disasters and facilities for creating/transporting   both water and foodstuffs in areas of little or no natural resources. I believe that we should also consider the beneficial effects of naturally occurring warm cycles as well as their deleterious effects.

A theory that makes sense ...

Regardless of what man does to limit the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide, this will have little or no effect on the global mean temperature. Ice core data, as well as other data, indicates that the rise in atomospheric carbon dioxide lags the rise in temperature by 600 to 1,000 years. Thus CO2 can hardly be a causal factor in so-called global warming. Perhaps a better explanation would be to consider that the carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean and the carbon dioxide found in the atmosphere are a self-regulating feedback loop. When the global temperature rises, more carbon dioxide is transferred from the warming waters of the ocean and thus the atmospheric carbon dioxide rises. In cooler times, more atmospheric carbon dioxide is bound within colder waters. Thus you need go no farther than a Richard Feynman-like conjecture using a bottle of soda. When the soda is cold, the CO2 remains dissolved, as the soda warms bubbles are form and the CO2 escapes into the atmosphere.

This cyclic nature of global climate change seems to be consistent with long term cycles, known as the "Milankovich." The cycles are based on a 26,000 year cycle based on the precession of the Equinoxes (wobble), a 41,000 year cycle involving the tilt of the Earth, and the 100,000 year cycle involving the Earth's elliptical orbit. All which affect the solar radiation impinging on the Earth. While this particular theory is not all inclusive of our present day knowledge, it does serve to highlight the gross cyclical nature of global climate.

Thus to make live-alterning public policy decisions that support political agendas makes little or no sense unless you understand that most politicians are weasles bent on stealing the fruits of your labors and doling out a miniscule portion of the bounty as rewards for continuing to support their corrupt politics. With billions of dollars worth of taxpayer money at stake, one can easily see where the Wall Street Wizards with the climate-related derivatives and their bought-and-paid-for political representatives would be inclined to support an Enron-style  carbon cap and trade system -- whose effects will not be measurable for at least 600 years. The perfect scheme to defraud the global community.

In conclusion …

You have a right to your own opinion, but not your own set of facts. Science is best performed by those who are passionately dispassionate about any specific findings as they lead to broader conclusions and theories – hopefully some day to be considered a temporal law on a par with Newtonian mechanics. In the final analysis, lest we forget our history, wars have been fought to control populations by seeking to control scarce natural resources. No matter how enlightened we tell ourselves that we have become, it is impossible to overcome the gross effects of human nature without coercion and weaponry.

-- steve

A reminder from OneCitizenSpeaking.com: a large improvement can result from a small change…

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius

Reference Links:

Global Climate Chart|NOAA

From a global warming  advocate’s informational site …

“Differentiating between ‘Denier’, “a person who denies” and ‘Skeptic’ “a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual” hinges on their behaviour.  Do they simply deny the science of climate change? or do they seriously question it? citing specifics and arguing logically that there is a rational basis for doubt. The only way to know is to check. In the interim I will use the term NCCP (No Climate Change Proponents) as a neutral term.

A survey of the standard NCCP websites, of which these are a good sample:

http://www.junkscience.com/
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/
http://newsbusters.org/
http://eteam.ncpa.org/issues/?c=global-warming
http://www.icecap.us/
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/new_scientist_sea_ice_increase.html
http://www.onecitizenspeaking.com
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/

gives us a host of arguments that range from facile to fraudulent. They rely on distortions, misrepresentations, straw man arguments, cherry picking data, and in some cases, blatant lies.” <Source>