TELLING IT LIKE IT IS !

Just recently, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are “pollutants that threaten public health and welfare.” This so-called “threat” comes from the effects of man-made global warming.

This ruling is the first step in regulating the very gas that makes life on Earth possible. If that sounds odd to you, it should. A lot of what is going on here has little, if anything, to do with public health.

The EPA’s “endangerment finding” classified CO2 under the Clean Air Act as a pollutant. EPA administrator Sheila Jackson said, “Greenhouse-gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations.” Her opinion of course!

There are a multitude of scientists who would disagree. The agency’s findings came at a time when the science surrounding man-made global warming is more hotly debated, and the “man-made” part more questionable than ever.

For starters, there are good reasons to doubt whether, in fact, the Earth is getting warmer. The data, as opposed to computer models, is telling us that the globe has been cooling for the better part of a decade. This inconvenient fact may be why the preferred expression has gone from “global warming” to “climate change” as fear mongers try to achieve a switch in wording while preventing a switch in support.

Real history teaches us that climate is always changing. So the question becomes: What causes climate change? Again, a great many leading climate scientists insist, with ample evidence to back it up, that the warming that occurred during the 20th century has resulted from natural causes and cycles.

Those like the Danish researcher Bjorn Lomborg who insist that even if human activity is contributing to a warming trend, then trying to regulate CO2 is the wrong approach. Lomborg says that “cutting CO2 simply doesn’t matter much for most of the world’s important issues.” Lomborg says the goal should be “to do better for people and the environment.”

Thus, we should emphasize developing technologies and alternative energy sources putting people first, and then the environment. The global warming crowd wants to change where we live, what we drive, and even what we eat. Where some things need to change we need to remember that CO2 isn’t the demon it has been made out to be.

Britain’s Hadley Center, itself a proponent of man-made global warming, calls some of the warning messages “misleading . . . apocalyptic rhetoric.” Rhetoric, such as Congressman Harry Waxman, telling NPR that the North Pole was in danger of evaporating. Evaporating!!!? … too much time with Al Gore.

Sadly, the biggest victims of this misleading rhetoric will be the world’s poor. As Lomborg points out, “Carbon remains the only way for developing countries to work their way out of poverty. … No green energy source is inexpensive enough to replace coal now.” Morally sound approaches to the environment must consider the plight of the poor.

Calling CO2, a part of the natural ecosystem, a “threat” to public health brushes aside these concerns and lets the would-be social engineers get to work – work that will create serious problems now, and for future generations … if forced at the current oratory now in progress by the Obama administration.

There was yet another recently released report casting doubt on the impacts of global warming – specifically whether or not the historically low water levels in the Great Lakes were caused by human activities. Green Groups frequently cited the lower levels as a result of human activity and a portent of things to come. Henry Payne at Planet Gore offered an assortment of news stories to claim this …

• April, 2003, Detroit News: “A group of scientists predicted that global warming will wreak havoc on the Great Lakes region . . . the largest single concentration of fresh water in the world.”
• October, 2003, Detroit Free Press: “The idea that warming has benefits may be a particularly tough sell to Michiganders already disturbed by what happens when the Great Lakes drop near historic lows.”
• April, 2007, Detroit News: “Data from a new United Nations report on climate change … strengthens scientific opinion that Michigan will see other dramatic effects in the coming decades: lower Great Lakes water levels, a dramatically receding Lake St. Clair. … “
• May, 2008, Detroit News: “A report released by an environmental group warns that unless Congress acts to curb global warming, Great Lakes water levels will drop up to 3 feet; beaches will close more often, and fish and animal populations will decline.”

It turns out these warnings and reports were wrong …

• A steady drop in water levels in Lake Michigan/Huron over the first half of this decade resulted from natural causes, not man-made ones, according to U.S. and Canadian researchers, noting that the past 18 months of rising waters could be an indication the lakes are headed back to normal levels.
• Researchers working for the International Joint Commission this week released the findings of a two-year study on the St. Clair River and the amount of water running through it out of Lake Michigan/Huron. The study was launched to answer questions by lake shore residents who had watched the steady drop of water levels in recent years.
• The study found that Mother Nature has been behind the changes under way in the last eight years. “It’s not ongoing; it has definitely stabilized,” said Ted Yuzyk, the Canadian co-chair of the study board, who added the changes have reversed in the last 18 to 24 months. “And it’s not human driven. This is more natural.”

This was a two-year comprehensive study with no political bias except to find the truth. Sadly, and predictably, green groups were up in arms over it.

The commission is not calling for any corrective action in the Lake Huron-St. Clair River now, which is not sitting well with members of the Canadian environmental group GBA Foundation … that funded its own study in 2004 to put the blame on human activity, and in reality was a conflict of interest.

“The fact that this report completely dismisses such an enormous increase in outflow and recommends that nothing be done about it is very disturbing,” said Roy Schatz, GBA’s founding president, in a press release when they didn’t get their own way with their warped research to twist the truth.

The report does not completely dismiss the enormous increase in outflow. Instead, it attributes it to a natural cause, using scientific evidence and the effects of this evidence’s impact, as opposed to manmade global warming.

For science to work properly, it needs to be allowed to be wrong, so that scientists can learn from their mistakes. The problem with the Radical Green Movement is that it can’t ever allow for the possibility that it could be wrong. The whole movement is based on the necessity of immediate action. Then when they are proved wrong it leaves them little choice but to attack and belittle deniers; which is as unscientific a response as there is … but one that is consistently utilized.