Former Vice-President Al Gores’ assertion that “climate crisis is the most serious challenge that our civilization has ever faced” is wrong.

First, mankind can do little or nothing to alter the chaotic processes of the climate change that they barely understand. Let alone use deeply flawed and inadequate computer models, based on hypothetical assumptions and highly-manipulated data to put forth scary scenarios of a planetary emergency in progress.

Second, it appears that the sole rationale for putting for apocalyptic climate theories is to both attract media attention and to scare the populace into accepting political policies which would be unprovable and untenable in normal times.

The most serious challenge that our civilization has ever faced is not climate change, it is a corrupt government that has traded its honor in return for campaign contributions, media attention and voter support. Buying the support of well-respected scientific institutions by selectively funding projects which support a self-serving public policy position. Scientists bending their research into studies which will attract institutional support and government funding.

So let’s see what Gore is telling new graduates …

The Utica Daily News is reporting …

“Al Gore addresses Hamilton grads”

“Al Gore, 45th vice president of the U.S., Nobel Laureate and author of An Inconvenient Truth, told Hamilton’s Class of 2011 that the climate crisis is ‘the most serious challenge that our civilization has ever faced,’ and that while the grassroots movement in support of solving the climate crisis is the most powerful in the history of the world, ‘it will be the generation of you in this graduating class that will really bring about change.’ Gore also addressed the political state of our democracy and how decisions made on false assumptions have led to major national challenges.”

“When our nation was debating the wisdom of invading Iraq, public opinion polls showed, at the time the Senate took its vote, more than three-quarters of the American people genuinely believed that the person primarily responsible for the attacks of September 11th, 2001, was Sadam Hussein, the then ruler of Iraq. Whether you agreed with that invasion or not, I believe that all should agree that it is dangerous for a great nation to base important decisions on facts that are manifestly false because decisions by great nations can have long lasting consequences. Because of that decision, based on a false understanding of reality, we are still in Iraq today.”

The irony of what Gore said …

“I believe that all should agree that it is dangerous for a great nation to base important decisions on facts that are manifestly false because decisions by great nations can have long lasting consequences.”

And yet, that is precisely what Al Gore is asking our nation to do. To base important decisions, not on facts, but on computer models developed by those who significantly benefit from their activist promotion of public policies. Or as we saw in “ClimateGate,” the facts were not as important as promoting a toxic ideology.

“In his address Gore said, “We have a debate in our nation as to whether the climate crisis is real. Every national academy of science of every major nation on the planet says it is. Every professional scientific association in every field related to the study of climate says it is. Ninety-eight percent of all climate scientists say it is.

Funny, when you come down to reading those reports – they are cobbled together, not by objective scientists alone, but by a curious mix of politicians, public policy advocates, institutional leaders and very few working scientists. Science is not done by consensus and thee is nowhere the degree of agreement that Al Gore and his cronies suggest.

Mother nature does not take sides and is oblivious to political policy …

“Mother Nature has weighed in. If you will think about the events of the last 12 months, 20 million people were displaced in a nuclear armed country when Pakistan suffered the largest flood in its history.” Gore cited examples of the effects of climate change on Australia, the Mississippi Valley, Texas and Russia, where they faced floods, fires and droughts.”

First, mother nature, as represented by a chaotic system with integrated and self-regulating feedback loops is mostly incapable of being accurately modeled and the results are mostly independent of  man’s puny attempt to influence the gross natural processed. To believe man can alter the Sun’s output, the Earth’s planetary orbit, the Earth’s rotational dynamics, the underlying vulcanology of the Earth or the largest of the greenhouse gases, water vapor, is ludicrous.

Second, Gore confuses climate (long term trends) with weather (short term events) – especially extreme weather events which are mostly driven by the heat exchange between the oceans and the atmosphere – all driven by the wind circulation which creates storms.

Shading the truth in some cases by not mentioning that some major fires attributed to global warming were a consequence of the environmentalists refusing to allow preemptive brush burning. Thus when lightning strikes a fuel dense region, you are liable to have forest fires of larger size and longer duration. Likewise droughts and floods as well as other extreme weather behavior can be linked more to known weather oscillations than global warming.

An example …

“El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a quasiperiodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every five years. It is characterized by variations in the temperature of the surface of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean—warming or cooling known as El Niño and La Niña respectively—and air surface pressure in the tropical western Pacific—the Southern Oscillation. The two variations are coupled: the warm oceanic phase, El Niño, accompanies high air surface pressure in the western Pacific, while the cold phase, La Niña, accompanies low air surface pressure in the western Pacific.”

“Winters, during the El Niño effect, are warmer and drier than average in the Northwest, Northmidwest, and Northmideast United States, and therefore those regions experience reduced snowfalls. Meanwhile, significantly wetter winters are present in northwest Mexico and the southwest United States including central and southern California, while both cooler and wetter than average winters in northeast Mexico and the southeast United States (including the Tidewater region of Virginia) occur during the El Niño phase of the oscillation.”

“In Africa, East Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania and the White Nile basin experiences, in the long rains from March to May, wetter than normal conditions. There are also drier than normal conditions from December to February in south-central Africa, mainly in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana. Direct effects of El Niño resulting in drier conditions occur in parts of Southeast Asia and Northern Australia, increasing bush fires and worsening haze and decreasing air quality dramatically. Drier than normal conditions are also generally observed in Queensland, inland Victoria, inland New South Wales and eastern Tasmania from June to August.” <Source>

Pure speculation without a  shred of proof …

“Gore noted that ‘the scientists are now in a shift, theoretically saying that if asked, could these events could have occurred in the absence of a man-made global warning?; the answer is almost certainly no.’”

First, this statement assumes that global warming is man-made -- which is lunacy; primarily because the Earth has been hotter, colder, with more severe weather events, with less severe weather events, with higher concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide and lesser concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide – all prior to the industrial revolution. And it appears that the climate trends and weather patterns are cyclical and mostly independent of man.

And second, scientists would be speculating on their answers as there is little or no proof of man’s influence on global climate when measured against the noise of climate’s natural variability and large timescales. All of their so-called “proof” is not based on observation, but on inadequate computer models using estimates and assumptions along with compromised and highly manipulated data.

Is this the real question?

“But how are we in our democracy supposed to establish the reality of the climate crisis with sufficient resolution to justify the bold and difficulty steps that must be taken in order to solve the climate crisis? Though some damage will be difficult to unwind, there is no doubt that we can if we choose to, solve the climate crisis.”

There is no scientific proof that man can solve the climate crisis, if in fact it exists – and is a crisis. Perhaps a better question, a more truthful question, would be to ask how the politicians can implement public policies that benefit themselves and their special interest friends; knowing that such public policies would enlarge the size of government, enlarge the size of a non-productive bureaucracy, raise taxes, raise the cost of all energy, permit wealth redistribution and curtail individual choices and freedoms?

It is more likely that any warming that we are seeing is a consequence of a planet leaving the little ice age … and if patterns hold, we will see the planet similarly cool and re-enter another ice age. Not in our lifetime, but in thousands of years. Which, considered against the beneficial nature of a warmer planet, is hardly the planetary crisis being portray by Gore and his associates.

There is no “true solution” …

“He said ‘the true solution depends upon exactly the kind of learning you have acquired here, and more precisely, the traditions you have acquired here to use the Rule of Reason, search out the best available evidence, and then engage citizens in a fair and reasoned discourse that searches for the best solutions.’”

There are no true solutions to global climate change. But Gore’s assertion about being influenced by the kind of learning you receive is spot on. The progressives, over the years, have dumbed down the curriculum, promoted social advocacy rather than critical thinking. And, as a result, produced decades of functional illiterates who confuse both the argument and the solution with the need to take some form of political action.

“Gore recalled that 50 years ago he listened to President John F. Kennedy challenge the U.S. to put a man on the moon. ‘And I remember hearing so many who said ‘That’s impossible. That was an unwise challenge.’ Gore pointed out that when that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did set foot on the surface of the moon eight years later, the systems engineers who were cheering that moment ‘were an average age of 26, which means their average age when they first heard that challenge was 18.’”

This was a technological challenge, capable of being solved by engineering, applied mathematics and physics – and did not involve a speculative hypothesis that resided only as a computer model. The principles of rocketry and the precepts regarding the  maintenance of life in a hostile environment were already known.

But Al Gore lies …

“Encouraging the graduates, he said, ‘We have the capacity; you have the knowledge. We as Americans have the tradition and the resolve to do whatever we choose to do. There is an old African proverb that says ‘If you wish to go quickly go alone. If you wish to go far, go together.’ We have to go far quickly.”

We do not have the capacity or even the requisite knowledge to affect climate on a global scale. We may have the tradition and resolve to take certain actions – but they need to be in the realm of possibility. Not theoreticals based on hypotheticals. 

An example: man could re-engineer the Mississippi levy system to prevent flooding. A massive use of time, energy and money to prevent a rather predictable repeat of a naturally reoccurring  catastrophe. So why haven’t they done it? Because people would demand actual performance and judge politicians on the results of their actions. Something that cannot be said about global climate change. We simply do not know how the chaotic climate system actually works and we cannot predict much more than gross trends – and we certainly cannot affect it if we do not understand it.

Bottom line …

Al Gore goes around the world on private jets making self-serving speeches about global climate change. He rarely mentions that he is profiting from his advocacy and he remains unwilling to debate the issue with qualified opponents such as Lord Christopher Monckton of Brenchley.

The real crisis that presents a clear and present danger to the United States is governmental and special interest corruption. Not to mention the toxic resurgence in communism which is attempting to use environmental issues to fund and promote their political philosophy.

Perhaps we should be learning to better manage coexistence with extreme weather events and natural disasters rather than chasing a ghost which exists only in the minds of those who can profit from the public policies imposed on a relatively uneducated public during a faux crisis.

And perhaps we would be better served by electing honest brokers to serve “We the People” and investigate those who are attempting to perpetrate a political hoax involving climate on the American people.

-- steve

Reference Links …

Utica Daily News - Local and national news for Utica, The Mohawk Valley and Central New York. - Al Gore addresses

Gore tells grads: Climate crisis 'most serious challenge that our civilization has ever faced'...

Hamilton grads