It looks like the global warming enthusiasts have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. People hacking into the computer system at England ’s University of East Anglia have found a treasure trove of e-mails outlining extensive efforts to bias the scientific argument over global warming.
The e-mails revealed a considerable effort to suppress any scientific opinions that go against the global warming orthodoxy. Global warming orthodoxy is the idea that the earth is getting warm due to man made effects and that the rate of warming is such that something must be done about it. The orthodoxy also assumes that something can actually be done about it.
The e-mails contain information on how to fudge the data so that it shows the earth is warming rather than cooling. There is data from NOAA and UHA which indicates the earth has actually been getting slightly cooler by about .6 degrees celsius in the last eight to 10 years. This is the type of information the global warming crowd doesn’t want to get out.
The e-mails also suggest that people whose scientific work does not support the "religion" of global warming should not have their work published and any scientific journal that publishes their work be blackballed.
At the present state of human knowledge, it appears that there is a legitimate doubt as to whether the earth is getting hotter or colder. The rate at which this temperature change is taking place is quite small. In 2001, NASA climate scientist, James Hanson wrote in "The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" that future global warming could be predicted relatively accurately to be ¾ plus or minus ¼ of a degree Celsius over the next 50years.
This is hardly a cause for panic.
The causes behind these small temperature changes are not well understood. Whether they are man made or caused by things quite outside our ability to control such as the variability of the sun’s energy output is not at all settled.
Finally, history indicates that the global warming we have experienced during recorded history has been beneficial rather than harmful. Historical evidence shows that the warming periods in history have produced more food and better living conditions.
The global warming backers insist that the scientific argument is completely settled in favor of man made global warming. Furthermore anyone who puts forth theories, evidence and data that does not agree with this point of view should be ignored or punished in various ways.
Anybody with technical training knows that arguments in science are settled by collecting more and more data until the truth becomes clear to everyone. You don’t settle scientific arguments with threats of force or boycotts of people with differing views. Or in this case suppression and fudging of data.
In the face of all this uncertainty our politicians are pushing for measures which will be quite disastrously costly for our economy and produce effects on the global temperatures which are almost too small to measure. For example adopting the Kyoto treaty, would according to Climatologist Patrick j. Michaels writing for the Cato Institute, only lower the earths temperature by about .07 degree Celsius in the next 50 years.
The global warming argument is being used to levy taxes such as cap and trade, obtain government funding to research the problem, and in general grab control of our lives.
It is embarrassing that people who should know better are climbing in the global warming gravy train because they see so much money in it. They are like children who pretend to believe in Santa Claus because they think they will get more presents.
In light of the economic stakes, the mainstream media is doing the American public a great disservice by giving little or no coverage to these “ham handed” attempts to bias the scientific playing field.
Maybe this type of bias partially explains why the readership and number of people watching the main stream news sources is steadily declining.
What we need to do now is back out of this "global warming panic mode" and let the facts be clarified. We need to know first if the earth getting warmer or colder. Second, we need to know if human activity is really having any considerable effect on the earth's climate. How fast is the global temperature changing, if at all? If there is warming or cooling is it really a problem. If it is a problem can we really do anything about it.
What we don’t need to do is pass legislation that ruins the American economy and we don’t need to run around "muddying the scientific water" about the facts of the case.
In this case the best course of action is to do nothing, especially since we don’t even know if there is a problem. The solutions put forward so far have very little impact on global temperatures, but a very big impact on our economic well being.