Case Settled?
Global Warming Myths: Part 1
By Daniel Muniz

I have always wondered why global warming activists and their supporters are so rabid about their belief of manmade greenhouse emissions destroying the planet. After all, this is an issue grounded in physical science so in adhering to the scientific method, there ought to be calm rational discussion about the subject.

But that has never been the case.

In fact, if anyone merely disagrees with any of the tenets of human induced global warming, they are harshly ridiculed and branded as ignorant. In fact, this fanaticism is very alarming because the scientific method is supposed to involve critical thinking instead of bullying.

The fundamental problem with global warming is that its proponents feel that their theory has already been unequivocally proven with absolute uncontestable facts. As a result, anything contrary to this supposed conclusion is nothing more than living in a state of denial. Below is an excerpt I found on Yahoo News from the fairly prominent environmentalist organization Environmental Defense. This is a common explanation of the viewpoint that the case is settled:

So according to environmentalists, the debate is over with no room for further discussion so we as a human race must take drastic action now in order to save our civilization.

Now here is the big hole in logic with making global warming so absolute and uncontestable. The harsh reality is that we are so far away from having anywhere close to enough facts. There currently exist such a vast number of unknown variables about the physical properties of our planet or how it truly operates. In fact, there are so many fields of science that are only in their infancy while many others have only been seriously studied for the past couple of decades. And there is still so much more that has yet to be discovered, let alone researched.

Does that mean we are ignorant?

No, it just means that we are severely limited in the knowledge of our planet. For instance, take at look at the bottom of the ocean. We know a lot more about our own moon than what we know that about the ocean floor. In fact, it was only a few decades ago that the scientific community was absolutely certain in their belief that nothing lived down there. After all, life as we know it needs photosynthesis (sunlight) to exist and it is total darkness at the bottom. And besides, nothing could possibly survive the enormous pressure at such phenomenally deep depths.

Well, the science community was wrong! The bottom of the ocean is brimming with vibrant and very fascinating life forms. Instead of photosynthesis, life down there depends on chemosynthesis from thermal vents (underwater volcanoes). In fact, planetary evolution was completely rewritten because it was assumed that life could only begin in the most ideal scenarios. Today, it is quite apparent that life exists and thrives in the most extreme conditions.

However, that example is only one of thousands of embarrassing discoveries that proved the exact opposite of conventional thinking. In fact, there are so many fields of science that are constantly being revamped or scrapped altogether because new discoveries radically alters what was thought to be true. And give it another couple hundred years and there will be so many more things proven entirely wrong because our knowledge is so incomplete. But that is the way science is. Whatever is proven false is discarded and a new approach is then taken.

That is why it is so inconceivable and scientifically irresponsible to make such incontrovertible claims when we currently know so little about our planet. However, it becomes sheer ignorance when we use what limited information we do have to make these kinds of sweeping irrefutable conclusions.

For example, when Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in 2005, climate change activists and the media went hog wild about the supposedly evident connection between global warming and killer tropical storms. Dire predictions were made that the country would be ravaged by deadlier hurricanes in the following years. However, the subsequent 2006 and 2007 hurricane seasons were incredibly lame and uneventful, yet the press and the experts sure kept quiet about nothing happening. Even Al Gore made the huge whopper by claiming that he never said that global warming caused hurricanes.

And what is the explanation for the winters of 2006/2007 and 2007/2008?

For years activists inundated us with dire warnings about rising temperatures yet those harsh winters produced record snowfalls and record low temperatures all around the world. In fact, snow has fallen in places that haven’t seen it in several decades. But in a stunning reversal, some of the same experts now contend that global warming is going to cause the next ice age. Well, it happens to be very convenient to change the issue from “global warming” to “climate change” because it can now be asserted that man causes any fluctuation of temperature.

As for saying that the debate is over is completely untrue and blatantly false. The real problem is that it never took place. It is hard to question something when the experts refuse to participate in kind of debate or dialogue about the issue. And what is most disturbing is that so much of the research that was funded by the United States government has not been released to the public. How can anyone rightly claim that the debate ended when the raw data has never been sufficiently peer reviewed and shared with other scientists?

Today, the planet is currently experiencing so many twists and turns that completely deviated from what was supposed to happen according to the dogma of global warming, like brutally colder winters and the lack of killer hurricanes. And there are probably plenty more surprises because so much of natural phenomenon is so poorly understood. To claim that we already have all the necessary facts is entirely ludicrous.

Below is an old maxim that sums up the global warming hubris perfectly:

The wise man knows that he doesn’t know.
And the prudent man respects what he doesn’t control.

Any opinions or views expressed herein belong solely to the author and does not represent any employer, organization, political party, governmental agency, or any other entity and do not necessarily reflect the views of the site owner or its participants.