Turning Up the Heat
By CHELSEA WALKER
April 2009
That special time of year in late April is fast approaching once again, and this year many UNC students and professors are looking forward to celebrating with some interesting new customs.
No, I am not talking about Easter. I am talking about Earth Day. The environmentalist group Focus the Nation strongly encourages teachers to devote their lessons on April 22 (that most sacred of days) to discussions about climate change. It is clear that they expect the many transgressions of its indisputable source – the vast conspiracy amongst Republican politicians and businessmen to fry the world using carbon dioxide emissions – to be the main topic of consideration.
However, this project presupposes that all professors believe that global warming is being caused by human activity. It also assumes that they have no concept of the ravages that policies like the cap-and-trade system would perpetrate on the increasingly-fragile U.S. economy if they were adopted. As UNC economics professor John McCallie has stated, “Not only is cap and trade unnecessary, it will ruin the economy as well as destroy our way of life.”
Attempts by environmental extremists to use professors to disseminate propaganda about the evils of the free market accomplish nothing but the alienation of students and staff members who feel that it is not in the United States’ best interest to further jeopardize our economy by implementing a policy which is not even based on sound and confirmed science.
Environmentalists feel that the debate about global warming and its origins has been closed for discussion, but that is not the case. Many scientists and free-thinkers have refused to enter the fold and decry the actions of industrialized nations as the cause of the Earth’s slight warming trend.
“It is not a matter of whether the earth is warming a bit or that the level of carbon dioxide has increased – that could be,” said McCallie. “The theory claims that it is human-caused, and that is the scam.”
“Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years” is a study of the substantial evidence that global warming is the result of a natural temperature cycle driven by the sun rather than a product of carbon dioxide emissions generated by the externalities of industry. What is most striking about the evidence collected by Dennis T. Avery and S. Fred Singer in this book is the sheer amount and variety of data which they have managed to accumulate. They have amalgamated the results of experiments done on all kinds of environmental indicators across the globe, from ice cores to fossilized pollen, to confirm their thesis of a relatively regular cycle of global warming and cooling which has been in place for hundreds of thousands of years, if not longer. The longevity of this regular pattern of climate change suggests that it cannot possibly be a consequence of human industrial activity.
The pattern of warming and cooling was first discovered by Willie Dansgaard and Hans Oeshger when they examined the ratio of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16 isotopes in ice cores in Greenland which go back 250,000 years. The isotope ratio demonstrates the temperature at the time of a snowfall in a given period in history. They found a moderate cycle of temperature change which repeats itself roughly every 1,500 years, plus or minus 500 years. The pattern was even imposed throughout the 90,000 year Ice Ages and interglacial warming periods, which were the only climate changes that scientists had previously been able to discern.
The findings of the Dansgaard expedition were corroborated by an ice core all the way across the world in Vostok, Antarctica. The same 1,500-year cycle was found to stretch back for an even longer period of 400,000 years by French and Russian expedition teams led by Claude Lorius.
As Singer and Avery assert in their book, scientists have long theorized that there is a relationship between the cycles of the sun and the Earth’s climate. There is no 1,500-year solar cycle, but Holger Braun of the Potsdam Institute and his colleagues believe that the DeVries-Suess and Gleissberg cycles of 210 and 87 years, respectively, superimpose on each other to create the 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling.
This suggests that the warming and cooling pattern is driven almost solely by solar activity, meaning that human activity should not be considered a direct influence on the cycle, contrary to the propaganda put forth by environmentalist groups such as Focus The Nation.
Deep-sea sediment cores provide further evidence of the 1,500-year warming and cooling cycle. Glaciers carrying debris went further south during cold periods before melting; they also carried larger amounts of debris during that time, which further indicates that temperatures were colder. These higher levels of debris and further travel distance to the south coincide with the 1,500-year pattern, demonstrating that cycles of cooling were interspersed with warm periods.
Two deep-seabed cores from opposing ends of the Atlantic Ocean were examined, and both matched the findings of the Greenland ice cores.
Stalagmite cores from caves all over the world demonstrate the 1,500-year cycle of change as well. Temperatures at various periods throughout history can be determined by the ratio of carbon and oxygen isotopes within the stalagmites. The evidence found in stalagmite cores goes back thousands of years, making them an extremely reliable source for learning about patterns of climate variation; one stalagmite in Germany dates back to 17,000 years ago.
Cores from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa all display evidence of the known major periods of climate change in history from tens of thousands of years ago forward.
The retreat and advance of glaciers also speaks to the variability of the Earth’s climate in times long past. As the authors point out, “many researchers say the glaciers are losing less mass per year as time goes by” (p. 71). According to the authors, glacier movement throughout geologic history can be tracked by carbon dating the outermost growth rings of trees which were killed by advancing glaciers.
As expected, glaciers have grown as the temperature has fallen and have decreased as the temperature has risen. However, glaciers in Russia, Scandinavia, and Sweden actually seem to be growing or maintaining equilibrium despite the warming trend which began in 1850 and continues today.
If all of this evidence disproving human influences on recent global warming exists, why do some seemingly rational people (and many irrational people) take Al Gore and his power-points seriously?
S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery have devoted an entire chapter of their book to detailing instances where scientists were refused all press coverage and grants if they spoke against the theory of human culpability. For example, David Deming, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, was offered an interview by National Public Radio after publishing a study of borehole temperatures that concluded that North America has warmed about one degree Celsius in the last century; however, when he refused to conclude that the warming was based on human activity, the offer from NPR was promptly rescinded.
He also received an email from one of his colleagues in the field of climate change research encouraging him to deny that a major past cycle of warming had ever occurred. Deming later testified before the Senate about these incidents.
Many scientists have literally been asked to “do away with” parts of their findings that do not square with theories which draw a straight line of correlation from the planet warming about 0.6 degrees Celsius in the past century to the activities of American “corporate fascist pigs.”
Never mind the fact that the Earth was 3.5 degrees warmer during medieval times than it is now, according to measurements determined by tree types and locations.
The entire premise behind scientific experimentation is that a theory must be falsifiable in order to be considered potentially true. How can the theory of man-made global warming be considered unequivocally factual if its proponents will not allow dissidents to present falsifying evidence? From the International Panel on Climate Change all the way down to the university level, whenever challenging views are expressed and subsequently dismissed without consideration, those who claim that a consensus has already been reached do science and the people of all industrialized nations a great disservice.
Jeopardizing our economy and our way of life by refusing to allow those who disagree about the cause of global warming to be heard is a dangerous form of censorship at all levels, and here at Carolina it is insulting to professors who have taken the time to examine the issue for themselves rather than thoughtlessly joining the flock of Al Gore genuflectors.