Simple truth about Global Warming

February 7, 2007
Simple truth about warmingBy LICIA CORBELLA
"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."
-- Leo Tolstoy
(1826-1910)
Clearly, Tolstoy -- the great Russian novelist -- wasn't writing about man-made global warming, since he predated this relatively recent hysteria. Nevertheless, the quote certainly applies to the global warming debate -- or should I say the climate change consensus?
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summary released last Friday inflates the language of doom even as it deflates its predictions of temperature and sea level increases from previous reports.
The IPCC Climate Change 2007 report predicts world temperatures will possibly rise 1.8C to 4C (3.25 to 7.2F) from 1990 levels to the year 2100 and that sea levels might rise 28 to 43 cm (11 to 17 inches).
Just six years ago, however, the picture looked much bleaker.
The 2001 IPCC report predicted that from 1990 to 2100 temperatures would rise 1.4C to 5.8C causing sea levels to rise by .09 to .88 metres (3.5 to 34.6 inches or 9 to 88 cm).
In other words, in just six years, predictions about temperature increases have plummeted by one-third and predictions about sea-level increases at the high end have been cut in half!
At that rate, by my calculations, we'll just have to wait for two more reports and the IPCC will be predicting no measurable increases at all!
Incidentally, many climate scientists have been saying just that -- wait until 2025, when it's expected the sun's output may wane, leading to global cooling.
Another measurement has had to be slashed by one-third as well.
In 2001, the UN body said the global net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming with radiative forcing of 2.43 watts per square metre.
Oops. Now they're saying it's 1.6 watts per square metre.
Shouldn't someone at least be blushing? Shouldn't they apologize for getting all of this so wrong?
If a large automobile executive got his predictions wrong by up to 50%, he'd be fired. The IPCC, however, continues to fly around at great cost to the UN and the environment and they stay on board this great gig as long as they continue to tout the party line -- that Earth is going to hell, only it's going to be even hotter.
What's most troubling about all of this is the 21-page, much-hyped summary is not referenced at all.
The science that supposedly backs all of these predictions is nowhere to be found and won't be released until April and May.
This is problematic on many fronts, but as past IPCC reports have shown, the summary is not written by the scientists whose names appear on the cover, it's written by politicians and bureaucrats.
Indeed, some of those scientists after the fact have complained their work has been grossly misrepresented.
In 2001, two scientists complained publicly their work was misrepresented by those who wrote the summary, including MIT physicist Richard Lindzen.
In June 1996, Dr. Frederick Seitz, past-president of the National Academy of Sciences and president emeritus of Rockefeller University, wrote with regard to the 1995 IPCC report: "I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report."
He continued: "This report is not what it appears to be -- it is not the version approved by the contributing scientists listed on the title page."
In other words, past IPCC reports have proven to be fraudulent and yet, to paraphrase Tolstoy, they have been woven into the public policy fabric of our lives.