Speaking of bad science...
I thought Al Gore said there was a "scientific consensus" on the human origins of climate change and global warming? If there's a consensus, why are so many scientists saying "Wait a minute! There's a lot of hard evidence that this is a natural, cyclical process?" The latest is R. Timothy Patterson, professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University. Read the Sunspots:
Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years ago, while the world was coming out of the thou-sand-year-long "Younger Dryas" cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade -- 100 times faster than the past century's 0.6C warming that has so upset environmentalists.
Climate-change research is now literally exploding with new findings. Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the field has had more research than in all previous years combined and the discoveries are completely shattering the myths. For example, I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of all energy on the planet.
Later, Dr. Patterson discusses corroborating evidence, such as core samples from the ocean floors, tree-ring evidence from Siberia, and the levels of the Nile, all of which show climate change closely correlates with sunspot activity and its effects on cosmic rays and their influence on cloud formation on Earth. When the Sun is at a low energy point, more cosmic rays get through and more clouds form, cooling the Earth. When the Sun enters a high-energy cycle, the Earth is more protected against cosmic rays, fewer clouds form, and the Earth warms. The most recent low-point occurred from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century, when New York harbor regularly froze. They also found no correlation between levels of "greenhouse gases" (principally carbon dioxide) and climate change.
In fact, Dr. Patterson warns us that, if the cycle he and his colleagues noticed holds up, we should be worried about global cooling around 2020:
Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.
This is genuine science, based on empirical evidence, not the computer models based on hypotheticals that can't even replicate past conditions, let alone predict the future.
The "science" of anthropogenic global warming is junk, and we should hope that courageous researchers like Dr. Patterson will continue to stand for rigorous science and against the hysteria of global warming alarmists, such as Al Gore.
LINKS: Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard reminds us of the damage caused by global-warming alarmists, while Power Line thinks the threat posed by global cooling is far worse than any warming trend. For a little humor, have a look at this column from the Chicago Sun-Times that suggests you save the Earth by turning off the air-conditioning. In Chicago. In the summer. Yeah, right.
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