Global Warming/Climate Change: Its all about the Global Religion of Greed

Jon Huntsman wrote an oped article in the New York Times titled “The G.O.P Can’t Ignore Climate Change.” He is a very bright, successful individual but he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Climate Change is now the new expression. It used to be Global Warming, but Climate Change affords flexibility in blaming both heating and cooling on the energy industry. The “debate” if one can call it that, is driven by a kind of Eco-religion in which consensus replaces facts. Many “scientists” make a living on government grants so they dare not opposed the political views emanating from the granting agencies.

So here are some facts:

First the debate is not over whether the planet is warming or has ever warmed. There is considerable evidence that beginning roughly in the year 1000 CE the planet began to cool. The average temperature reached a minimum in 1640, a year that coincided with a minimum in sun spot activity. Hold that thought. Solar activity coincides with global warming. Then from 1640 to the present the average temperature of the earth rose. This is irrefutable, based on scientific data. Then about 30 years ago when it became possible to measure the average temperature from satellites, the average temperature appeared to enter a flat period, i.e. temperature has not risen much, if at all over the last 30 years. The present average temperature is about what it was in the year 1000. Now remember that coal was not used in large quantities until the 19th century and oil was not used until the 20th century, so how can fossil fuel be responsible for a temperature rise that began in 1640?

Let look back further in time. There was an ice core dug out of Antarctica in 1958 (I’m not absolutely sure of the year, but trust me it’s about right). This core provided data on temperature and CO2 going back 250,000 years. It showed that both temperature and CO2 cycled with roughly a 10,000 year periodicity. It did not indicate which was cause and which was effect, but in my view increasing temperature will cause CO2 to outgas from the oceans, causing a concomitant rise in CO2 in the atmosphere.

But wait. What about the Greenhouse effect and the heating by the CO2 in the air? The theory is that CO2 in the atmosphere causes heat to be trapped near the earth instead of being radiated to space. Unfortunately all the mathematical models based on this phenomenon were proven to be wrong. They did not predict the average world temperatures correctly over the last 30 years. Not even close.

So why is everyone talking about CO2 and global warming? It’s about the money. It’s always about the money. Those greedy, nasty energy companies make their money providing coal, oil and gas all of which end up as CO2 in the atmosphere. If they can be shown to be polluting the planet and causing distress, they can be taxed. Really taxed. Then the money raised, after the tax man takes a reasonable cut, can be used to provide economic aid to the third world, where the energy moguls are stealing their oil. It’s all about the money.

Well then, if the models don’t work, and the sun along with some continental drift and other things we won’t get into, are really causing changes in climate why would we burden our economy and the world economy with energy taxes, not to mention crazy schemes to use cockroach dung instead of oil? It’s because the Global Climate debate has degenerated into Global religion and Global greed.

Let’s go back to Huntsman. Basically he says it is prudent for the Republican party to have a position on Climate that addresses threats to our economy. Fine, but if it is being implied that fossil fuel is the culprit that needs to be taxed and generally avoided we will be damaging our economy in the interest of protecting our economy. If the average global temperature continues to rise people will make rational decisions based on this observation. If Florida gets too hot people will move to Canada. We can’t engineer the climate. We don’t know how and even if we did it would be far too expensive. Better to accept that climate is a natural phenomenon and we need to adjust to it, not try to change it.

Two more facts before I stop. First CO2 is not a pollutant as defined by the EPA. They only included it as a pollutant so they could regulate the energy industry, in particular the coal industry, on the theory debunked above. Without CO2, plants would not grow, food for humans and animals would not be available. Second, when the government gets into things it doesn’t understand and uses its power to regulate our lives based on some false scientific premise, we are all in serious trouble.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by H. Hemken. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

---