science is about being sceptical; to accept a theory without good evidence because it is presented as a ‘consensus view’ is bad science.
A single proven ice-core result demonstrating, unequivocally, that the temperature rose before the CO2 level would constitute absolute disproof and suffice to destroy the theory. There is good evidence suggesting that this has happened. Meanwhile, the lack of any significant global warming since 1998 suggests that the prophets of an accelerating disaster, of a hockey-stick-shaped increase in global temperatures, are wrong.
We just do not know what the overall effect of the CO2, released by man’s efforts, will have on the world’s climate; it may take many years to obtain the necessary evidence. On present evidence, it does not appear to be a cause for panic. The risk of waiting until there is more certainty is much less than the scaremongers would have us believe. There is no Armageddon waiting around the corner. The end of the world is not nigh.
A final word
The evidence in the IPCC report (4AR WG I) is detailed and written in an authoritative style. It is presented as the bible of climate-change science. Readers should bear in mind that the working party that drew up the conclusions included those whose own opinions and papers are widely quoted in the compilation of the report. In effect, the report gives only their side of the story. The working party did ask some of those attending (many as representatives of governments that had approved the Kyoto Protocol) for comments on the draft Protocol. The most consistent comments were that it implied a degree of certainty that was not supported by evidence. Special criticism was made of the panel’s reliance on predictions from mathematical models whose accuracy was disputed, even by the modellers.
The late Fred Seitz, a physicist at Oregon University Department of Science and Medicine, organised an online petition questioning the link between global warming and CO2. The petition received 33,000 signatures from American scientists, of whom over 9,000 held PhD degrees.
In 2007, some four hundred climate scientists and astrophysicists from around the world, some of whom were on this or other IPCC panels (four times the number of those who drew up the IPCC report), produced a separate document (US Senate Report: ‘400 Prominent Scientists Dispute Man-Made Global Warming Claims’) condemning the conclusions of the report as unproven, alarmist and wrong.
They believe that there is no evidence that the warming of the past hundred years is outside the parameter of natural temperature variability and they conclude that it is unlikely that there will be any significant warming driven by anthropogenic CO2. They believe the scare story presented in the report is without scientific justification.
In spite of these massive petitions from scientists who do not believe that manmade CO2 will cause a dramatic global warming, we are told that ‘all scientists agree with the IPCC’ and that hypothesis is proven. Clearly it is not.
Many scientists point out that there are very few institutions that can obtain funding for research that runs counter to the prevailing views of the IPCC, as a result one is left with an impression that there is no other story. It is difficult for those that question the anthropogenic global-catastrophe story to make their voice heard. The Compiler of Programmes for the BBC has said that she considers the case proven and that alternative views should not be given air time. The British peer Lord Lawson tells of the difficulty his agent had in finding an English publisher willing to promote a book that concludes that global-warming predictions are alarmist. The voice of respected scientists from outside their club of true believers is denigrated and they are frequently accused, by the green lobby, of being in the pay of the oil industry. The statement made by the chairman of the IPCC that there is a ‘consensus in this science’ is not based on fact: it results in insufficient attention being given to the views of the very large body, the silent majority, of dissenters. Good science is not served by promoting a false ‘consensus’.
These chapters have been reviewed by five eminent scientists involved in energy science, climate physics and mathematical modelling. Two have asked for their names not to be revealed for fear of losing research funding or advancement.
I am grateful for the advice of H O Pritchard, professor of gas kinetics and combustion, York University, Toronto, Canada; Professor B Gray (emeritus), Sydney, Australia, at present combustion and scientific consultant, Turramurra, NSW, Australia; and Michael Arthur, geophysicist. They have all have given permission for their assistance to be recognised.
STANLEY FELDMAN
DOGMA
The ice caps are melting and will cause a 6-metre rise in the level of the seas.
OF ALL THE SCARE STORIES about global warming, it is the rise in sea levels and the fear of flooding of low-lying lands and islands due to melting of the global ice cap that have caused most alarm. Figures presented as likely scenarios have suggested a rise of from 20cm (7.9in) (suggested by the IPCC in 2001) to 6 metres (20ft) (suggested by Al Gore in his 2007 film, An Inconvenient Truth) in the level of the oceans by the end of the century. Any rise in the sea level will depend on global warming causing the melting of huge amounts of land-based ice and dumping it into the sea at a rate greater than that at which it evaporates. It is appropriate, therefore, to question just what is happening to the global ice caps, where most of the ice is found, and what is happening to the level of the oceans, so as to determine whether there is a real cause for panic.
The Arctic ice cap
In August 2007, the world was stunned to learn that Russian submariners had succeeded in planting the Russian Federation flag on the seabed under the Arctic ice cap, claiming the landmass for Russia. The land is geographically an extension of the Siberian landmass, under the sea, giving their claim some validity. There was little doubt about the Russians’ motives. They have no intention of settling the land, but are laying claim to the vast underground reserves of oil and gas believed to exist in the area. There are very good geological reasons why there should be oil under this part of the Arctic ice cap: it is an extension of the Siberian continent which has enormous oil deposits it is contiguous with the tundra shale deposits and the Alaskan oil fields that lie on the other side of the same Arctic ice cap.
The presence of oil under the Arctic demonstrates just how geologically new the ice cap is. Oil is a biofuel. It comes from the degradation of plant life. Originally it came from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the water and minerals in the soil. If oil is there today, the land must have been covered by plant life millions of years ago. In the Antarctic, recent geological explorations have revealed the presence of fossils of primitive animal life, demonstrating that its mountains of ice are a maximum of 14–15 million years old.
The Arctic ice, which we are told is melting, is a geologically new phenomenon that covers much of what was once green land. It was lost in the last great Ice Age thousands of years ago. In winter it extends down to cover the green of Greenland. It extends from the North Pole down towards Siberia in the east and Canada in the west. It has frozen solid the Northwest Passage, which, according to history, was navigable in the 16th and 17th centuries. If there is a proven long-term diminution in the size of this gigantic iceberg, it will only be putting the environmental clock back to what it was very many years ago. It will hardly be ‘destroying the planet’. But, then, is it actually melting?
There
