By Mike Cronin

The allegation:

The human race is causing the earth’s climate to change in a destructive way, mainly by putting too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing acceleration of the greenhouse effect (warming the planet up faster than if it had been “left alone”).

The evidence you may have heard:

The global average temperature has risen over the last century. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere released by human activity has risen dramatically as a result of technological advancement from fire to steam to fossil-fuel burning for energy. The science is settled.

The polar ice caps are melting. Glaciers are receding.

97% of climate scientists are in consensus that global climate change is occurring and that it is being caused by man.

Let’s break it down.

1. “The average global temperature (AGT) has not increased since 1995 and has declined since 2002, despite an increase in atmospheric CO2 of 8% since 1995.” The earth’s climate is changing – it always has.  The increased carbon dioxide released by human activity since the industrial revolution MAY indeed be a factor.  Some evidence is suggestive, but not incontrovertible. The science is NOT settled.
   1. Carbon dioxide is not a major greenhouse gas. Water vapor is the most important one.
2. Regardless, climate change is inevitable – over time. That doesn’t make it a crisis.  We can adapt. It is what we excel at as a species.
3. Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are growing in thickness and cooling at their summit. Sea ice around Antarctica attained a record area in 2007.
4. Consensus has no bearing on physical reality.
   1. The fact that 97% of climate scientists agree is irrelevant; the 3% of climate scientists who don’t concur with their colleagues might be correct.
   2. The “fact” that 97% of climate scientists agree is itself not settled science!

The science of global climate change has been hijacked by ideologues who want to further their own agendas using scientific nomenclature to scare us laymen. Note how all of the “solutions” to global climate change always seem to require some sacrifice from the developed world. Note how the term “climate change denier” has become all but synonymous with the word “heretic.”

1. Consider that in the 1970s, the scare was over global cooling. Then it was global warming. Now it’s “climate change.”
2. Consider that the organization most responsible for climate change alarmism is the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Is it a political body, or a scientific one?  Note that “solutions” to global climate change promoted by the IPCC, such as the so-called Kyoto Protocols, require developed nations to curtail carbon-dioxide producing activity, but allow developing nations to continue to produce CO2, as if the climate is sensitive to where CO2 comes from and who benefitted from its emission – a rich country or a poor one.

So, what can we do?

1. Don’t be alarmed, be skeptical.
2. Don’t go out of your way to add CO2 to the atmosphere, but don’t take a guilt trip if you drive an SUV or don’t recycle. Live your life as you will, on your own terms.
3. Be wary of politicians, educators, and celebrities that proselytize the religion of climate change. They can’t save you from it even if they are right, but humanity can adapt.