More Global Cooling
The mainstream media, parts of the scientific community, and various special interest groups want to convince us that the planet is warming. And if the scientific case for that seems iffy, then they at least want to convince us that planet earth is changing for the worse, all thanks to human activity.
However, thanks to a growing movement of scientists, along with a growing alternative media, not everyone is buying the current wisdom. Several recent articles – mostly found in the alternative media – highlight these trends.
One story which has not been given much of a run in the MSM is a new report about conditions in Antarctica. It seems that the ice is growing there, not diminishing. As one report states, “Ice is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap. The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent’s western coast.”
The report concludes with these words: “Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia’s Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years. The average thickness of the ice at Davis since the 1950s is 1.67m. A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded.”
Australian scientist Bob Carter, who was at the Heartland International Climate Change Conference, New York, in March, also speaks of scientific facts often not reported in the MSM. In a paper to the Conference, he mentions these four facts:
“First, there has been no recent global warming in the common meaning of the term, for world average temperature has cooled for the last ten years. Furthermore, since 1940 the earth has warmed for nineteen years and cooled for forty-nine, the overall result being that global average temperature is now about the same as it was in 1940.
“Second, this lack of overall warming over the last sixty-eight years happened despite an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide of more than 20 per cent; which is actually no surprise, because, notwithstanding that it is a greenhouse gas, the increase in the warming effect of carbon dioxide beyond 1940 levels is diminishingly small.
“Third, by planetary accident, in comparison with most of the Earth’s geological history we live today in a world that is in a state of carbon dioxide starvation, especially for optimal plant growth; just ask the commercial tomato growers who use enhanced levels of carbon dioxide in their greenhouses to expedite crop growth.
“Fourth, experience in Europe shows emissions trading markets are unstable, and that a carbon dioxide tax is ineffectual as a tool for reducing emissions at any reasonable price level. Overall, therefore, Mr Rudd’s planned emissions trading scheme suffers from the double indignity of being a non-solution to a non-problem.”
The Heartland Conference was an alternative scientific gathering, which the MSM largely ignored, but the alternative media was quite willing to report. And thanks to such alternative scientific meetings and media outlets, Americans, it seems, are not buying the anthropogenic climate change hype.
One recent article presents the data: “The latest Rasmussen poll reports that the lowest number of voters ever polled – one-in-three – believe that global warming is caused by human activity. That’s an astonishing figure, especially considering the all-out green propaganda assault the mainstream media (MSM) exposes the public to on a daily basis.
“After all, it’s become nearly impossible to open a magazine, unfold a newspaper or turn on the television without being scolded about the selfishness of your energy consumption and the damage your unworthy existence does to the planet. And yet, Friday’s Rasmussen found that forty-eight percent of all likely voters attribute climate change to long-term planetary trends, not their so-called carbon-footprint. That’s up 4% in less than three months.
“Aided by an all-too-eager MSM, policy makers speak of manmade climate change as ‘settled science’ and perpetrate the lie that only a few ‘fringe’ scientists question its tenets. Nevertheless, the latest Gallup Poll reports that 41% of Americans consider global warming to be an exaggeration. That’s up 11% in just 3 years.”
My final example is a new book by Australian scientist Ian Plimer. The book, Heaven And Earth, has even caused one true believer to have a change of mind. Paul Sheehan has given the book a positive review, and his opening paragraphs are worth reprinting here:
“What I am about to write questions much of what I have written in this space, in numerous columns, over the past five years. Perhaps what I have written can withstand this questioning. Perhaps not. The greater question is, am I – and you – capable of questioning our own orthodoxies and intellectual habits? Let’s see. The subject of this column is not small. It is a book entitled Heaven And Earth, which will be published tomorrow. It has been written by one of Australia’s foremost Earth scientists, Professor Ian Plimer. He is a confronting sort of individual, polite but gruff, courteous but combative. He can write extremely well, and Heaven And Earth is a brilliantly argued book by someone not intimidated by hostile majorities or intellectual fashions.
“The book’s 500 pages and 230,000 words and 2311 footnotes are the product of 40 years’ research and a depth and breadth of scholarship. As Plimer writes: ‘An understanding of climate requires an amalgamation of astronomy, solar physics, geology, geochronology, geochemistry, sedimentology, tectonics, palaeontology, palaeoecology, glaciology, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, ecology, archaeology and history.’
“The most important point to remember about Plimer is that he is Australia’s most eminent geologist. As such, he thinks about time very differently from most of us. He takes the long, long view. He looks at climate over geological, archaeological, historical and modern time. He writes: ‘Past climate changes, sea-level changes and catastrophes are written in stone.’
“Much of what we have read about climate change, he argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modelling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as ‘primitive’. Errors and distortions in computer modelling will be exposed in time. (As if on cue, the United Nations’ peak scientific body on climate change was obliged to make an embarrassing admission last week that some of its computers models were wrong.)”
These four scattered episodes demonstrate that the perceived wisdom can be challenged. Thanks in large part to the alternative media, countering views are slowly getting out there. The MSM still has a stranglehold on all this, but other sites – including this one – will continue to allow for alternative voices.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25349683-601,00.html
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/4/a-new-policy-direction-for-climate-change
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/its_alternative_media_thats_co.html
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/beware-the-climate-of-conformity-20090412-a3ya.html?
[1149 words]
But we don’t have time to find out whether it’s true or not, we have to act now!
Buy my product/magazine/tax/philosophy (select one)
Michael Hutton, Ariah Park
Will Bob “The Pious” Brown accept the alternative? Probably not, for like most of the toxic Greens, they want to have us all living in caves under the tutealage of Big Brother/Sister who know better than us. Is the Gospel according to climate change the textbook for One World Government??
Wayne Pelling
Is that the Ian Plimer who wrote a book “Telling Lies for God” which (apart from whether you accept or reject the book’s position on YEC) proved to contain deliberate untruths?
Do you want to comment on why you are referencing his views?
Dale Flannery
Thanks Dale
Yes it is the same writer. Obviously many believers would have been quite unhappy with his earlier work. But this book does in fact involve his area of expertise. So as I often tell my readers/listeners, consider this website – and everything you read or hear- to be a fish dinner: enjoy the meat and leave the bones behind.
It goes without saying that many people can be allies on some issues, while being enemies on others. For example, Bob Carr, former NSW Premier, had a great article on religious vilification laws in the SMH over the weekend. At the same time he rightly attacked such laws, he took swipes at the two pastors caught up with the Victorian laws. But I will still plug the article, even though I do not agree with every aspect of it:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/religion-laws-dont-have-a-prayer-in-a-country-with-robust-common-sense-20090417-aa4w.html
In the same way I can plug the new Plimer book, even though having issues with his earlier book. The point is, I can refer readers to other writers who I may not agree with on every point. If I get too picky concerning whom I consider to be at least co-belligerents, I will soon get down to a club of one – myself. And I don’t always agree with myself either!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thanks, Bill.
It is timely to have a post on the GW issue, as I have taken a great interest in the issue over the last 18 months or more. Like you, I don’t like it when Ian Plimer attacks creationism, and puts out his “millions of years” scenario, but I am still happy to recommend this book, along with the booklet “Thank God for Carbon” by Ray Evans. Plimer speaks with authority as a scientist, not perhaps a “climate scientist”, but as he points out, and as I have tried to point out in private conversations, there are a host of disciplines involved with the climate change issue, not merely “climate” (however that is conceived). People who brush off a scientist from having a legitimate say on the GW issue by saying “not a climate scientist” only show their ignorance of the interdisciplinary character of science, and knowledge generally.
In fact my hope is that Plimer’s book, exhaustively researched as it is, will sound the death-knell of the whole GW claptrap as probably the greatest hoax and scam in the history of science, even outdoing the Piltdown hoax. When the death-knell is sounded and the funeral rites conducted, there will be an enormous lot of egg on a plethora of faces, such that it will take a network of poultry farms to supply.
Murray Adamthwaite
Regardless of what you believe about this debate, do you not believe that we are called to care for the Planet we have been given?
Neal Taylor
I have had this discussion many times with friends, family, etc, just asking them to consider the actual data of global temperature, etc. Eventually, though backed into a corner by actual data which the ‘experts’ are basing their reasoning, I am told to “just shut up”.
Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems alot of people just want to be told what to think and get on with what they’re doing. An open mind is a frightening thing…
Tristan Ingle, Sydney.
Thanks Neal
Of course. We are called to be good stewards of planet earth. We are also to be wise and discriminating in how we do this. If a proposed course course of action, based upon questionable science, may result in economic vandalism and possible curtailment of freedoms, then that needs to be carefully examined indeed. We should not rush into a course of action based on panic-mongering. Instead we need a careful and rational assessment of the evidence. It seems the evidence is far from in on anthropogenic climate change.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Skeptical of the Skeptic.
Ian Plimer may well be correct on the supposed global warming, if so this would be a first for Plimer. This is the same Ian Plimer who earlier attacked the then Creation Science Foundation (CMI) and other creationists claiming they were telling lies for God. It turned out that it was Plimer who was telling woppers, to the point that well known US Skeptic, Jim Lippard, called Plimers grandeous revelations the worst case of Skeptic failure he had come across. According to Lippard his earlier book, Telling Lies for God, “…is riddled with errors and omissions of crucial facts.” Lets hope Plimer’s revelations on global warming are actually objectively based. It would be a nice change. See. http://www.discord.org/~lippard/plimer-book.html
John Heininger
Neal Taylor seems to be making an assumption that to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions is to “care for the Planet”. I don’t see it that way. It could well be that contributing to an increasing concentration of atmospheric CO2 is the best thing we could do for the planet! The planet’s plant life will certainly love us for it.
Ewan McDonald.
Tristan,
Like you, I have found the same thing. One just has to let drop that one is a sceptic and “all hell breaks loose” from the alarmist clique. It happened to me last year with a close acquaintance. After “dumping on me” a barrage of irrelevant facts (e.g. polluted air in Beijing) I beat him back point by point, but finally he walked away in utter exasperation. For him I was just a pariah and that was that!
My friend and colleague has had similar experiences as a science teacher in a Christian school. Just mention that you are a sceptic and you are treated as a pariah. How does one deal with this mentality?
Neal,
Care for the environment is one thing; worship thereof is quite another. And the latter is very much the programme of the green movement: they are pantheistic pagans at heart and root: Gaia-worshippers.
Also: the notion that we can somehow change the climate, and control weather patterns is sheer arrogance. It has nothing to do with care for the environment. Read again Job 38:25-30, 34-38. As God reminded Job of his own smallness and God’s majesty, we need to be reminded likewise. We can no more “count the clouds by wisdom, or tip the water-jars of the heavens” (Job 38:37) than could Job, but modern godless man in his folly will spend megadollars in the attempt!
Hope this helps.
Murray Adamthwaite
I would love someone to track the fads and fashions of hysteria. While there are some legitimate concerns these are often blown way out of proportion.
Some of the fads I have seen come and go are:
– The hole in the ozone layer
– We’ll all run out of crude oil in x years (continuously postponed)
– 5 minutes from global destruction by nuclear war
– AIDS and SARS pandemics
– Greenhouse effect/global warming/climate change.
I remember each of these being of global, immediate, all encompassing significance, and then just fading off the radar.
I acknowledge that some (all) of these were legitmate concerns. CFC’s are bad for the Ozone. But it was no way near as bad as it was made out to be.
I suspect we hype up these things because:
1) Media is driven by ratings and dramatisation
2) consumerism always needs a new gimmick
3) Funding/politics/votes are all interconnected with PR and public opinion
4) As Chesterton pointed out, when we stop believing God (Christianity) we’ll believe anything
Does anybody know of a site that has tracked these fads? It can help put it all in perspective.
God Bless,
Michael Hutton, Ariah Park
Murray, while I agree that many in the green camp take the extreme and worship the environment – I would have to argue that in fact while you argue from Job that correctly God has laid it all out to work, do you not agree that man has and can and will continue do so, corrupt and alter the environment in small scale areas that ultimately may impact the larger environment. Your argument does not take into account creation and the fact that we are to be stewards of what we have been given.
Bill and Ewan – not sure how you got that I was arguing for the green movement from my last comment – but I agree with Bill – that it needs clear examination and consideration. But if what I can do on my own scale can have a positive effect why not continue to do it? It seems both illogical and pathological to continue on a path that is destructive to both us and the planet.
Sure, it will all work out in time, but perhaps the world we be a much different place for our descendants after the planet has corrected some of the damage.
Neal Taylor
Michael, you forget the mini ice age in the 70’s but on another point, we live under the effects of the Ozone hole. Our experience is that we burn far easier 400km south of Perth than we do when we visit Perth.
Agreed the reason for the hole is still a matter in question. It doesn’t seem likely that it was CFCs. In fact it doesn’t seem likely that the cause is anthropogenic.
Max Stam
Neal,
While I would not brand every last person in the green movement as an earth-worshipper, the pervasive orientation of the movement is emphatically religious, albeit not Christian, and for a Christian to become involved in it has to involve some sort of compromise, to say the least. I know this from professing Christians who are wrapped up in it, and trot out the stock shibboleths accordingly (e.g. the overpopulation line).
As to the remainder of your post, I would agree that “in small scale areas” one can corrupt the environment, but what you are talking about there is pollution, which is a local factor, NOT “climate change”.
My major beef here with the so-called ‘greenie Christians’ is that they are majoring on minors. The Bible constantly measures us by the standard of His moral Law, i.e. the Ten Commandments and all their implications. And one does not find anything there about global warming!
At the final Judgment the questions will not, I am confident, range around whether I cleaned up dirty creeks, disdained using plastic bags, and still less whether I turned off lights on Earth Day(!); but whether I served the LORD faithfully, honoured His holy Name, kept the Lord’s Day, honoured my parents, maintained truth etc. Let us take heed to what God lays down in His Word, and NOT the shibboleths and commandments of men.
Murray Adamthwaite
Thanks Neal
Thanks for your continued input. You say: “But if what I can do on my own scale can have a positive effect why not continue to do it?” Absolutely. We can all do plenty of things on a small scale. We can all seek to be better stewards in terms of water usage, resource use, turning off unused electrical appliances, etc., etc. There are many dozens of practical things that we all can do which might have a small role to play in doing our bit for the environment. No one is begrudging this.
You also say, “It seems both illogical and pathological to continue on a path that is destructive to both us and the planet.” But here you again seem to have some assumptions that need to be teased out. Just what path is it that we are on? Just what is it that you have in mind that is destroying us and the planet? You need to spell this all out a lot more clearly.
It seems in this whole debate a lot of important questions have to be carefully assessed:
-Just what exactly are the problems?
-What are the actual causes of the problems?
-What role, if any, do humans play in these problems?
-What remedies are needed to fix the problems?
-What cost/benefit analysis has been undertaken to the proposed solutions?
-Will the solutions be worse than the problems?
Etc.
For example, many environmentalists are convinced that planet earth is woefully overpopulated, and that radical steps are needed to remedy this (as I document on this site). Many propose a human cull of anywhere from 50 to 90 per cent. I have a big problem with this obviously, both as a Christian and as a human being.
So to simply suggest we are on a path to disaster, without clearly spelling out what this entails is not going to get us too far. At the very least, our concerns and actions must be evidence-based. It seems there is far too much uncertainty about the AGW thesis to rush into radical “cures” until we further look into the situation.
But you are quite right to be concerned about all this. Christians are called to take care of planet earth. It is our home, and we are to be good stewards of it. We may in fact live here forever, depending on how we understand the biblical concept of a new heavens and a new earth.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill
You are spot on. I have read several books on the topic and they come to the same conclusions, Climate change is here to stay but is not caused by carbon dioxide emissions.
Kevin Rudd’s obsession with the theory can only lead Australia into a further level of economic instability whilst it attempts to lead the world in a way that will cost us, our children and grandchildren a fortune, eliminate jobs and achieve precious little in carbon emissions.
There is climate change and good government policy should focus on what that means for Australia and what should be done in sensible medium / long term planning to deal with its impacts.
The current policy sadly does not address that at all.
David Grace
Thanks guys
Another good article on climate change – and the changing intellectual climate – is found here: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25367707-5000117,00.html
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thanks again guys
And just to point out I am not making these things up: as I mentioned in an earlier comment, some radical greens want human culls. In today’s press greenies are urging that Australia’s population be cut by 70 per cent! See my write-up here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2009/04/22/more-population-madness-more-human-culls/
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Michael Hutton, you said:
“I would love someone to track the fads and fashions of hysteria. While there are some legitimate concerns these are often blown way out of proportion…”
Check out “Scared to Death” by Christopher Booker and Richard North (Continuum 2007).
It does exactly that in very well-referenced detail and is quite an eye-opener!
All the best,
Jenny Gratwick, Scotland
Hey Bill!
Thanks for taking interest in this issue. I have been quite complacent in taking a standpoint on what I believe, but have began to see the importance of knowing the facts, as God consistently pushes us to test everything.
I found heaps of information that supported my belief that this was another Y2K or something … but this speech by John Coleman is great. It’s an hour long, but worth the watch
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6763913684263458299
Satirical, full of facts and boldness.
I would assume it’d be hard to find something you haven’t seen or already heard of, seeing as it’s your full time job! BUT I think it’s worth posting for others.
Thanks for everything Bill
God Bless
Michelle Guillemaud, Alberta, Canada
Thanks guys
There are two new interesting articles on all this in today’s papers.
One is on arguments over Antarctic ice melting claims: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25402488-2702,00.html
And one is on ten global warming myths:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25401759-5000117,00.html
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I was unaware that Christians of any sort oppose the idea of global warming. Please could someone explain why – with more information than a belief that it is untrue. Thanks
Katharine Hornsby
Thanks Katharine
There are of course plenty of Christians who question the claims of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), just as there are plenty of non-Christians who also do. But how can one talk about something like global warming without speaking of whether it is true or not? Christians of all people should be people of truth. Christians are told to test all things. This is as true of theological doctrines as of scientific theories. We should not be pushing anything if it is found to be false. So the real issue here is the scientific truth or falsity of the issue. Both Christians and non-Christians must be guided by the evidence here.
So if you are asking what is the evidence, let me offer two bits to begin with. A short article providing ten reasons why we need to take the global warming scare with caution is found here: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25401759-5000117,00.html
And if you seriously want to pursue this topic, a new 500-page book with 2000 references is well worth getting: Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth: http://www.connorcourt.com/catalog1/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=103&zenid=56c85bb2e85f7c6e5829d440e4721cb9
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
This video produced by Coral Ridge ministries is the best 1 hour I have watched on the AGW/CC controversy. Canvassing of this issue especially as it affects and relates to Christians. What is a Biblical worldview of the environment? We were given the dominion mandate from God to Adam. What does that mean?
It is at http://www.answersingenesis.org under going green Biblically…..
Jennifer Parfenovics
Thanks guys
Ian Plimer takes on his critics here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25429080-7583,00.html
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Andrew Bolt has a good column today on the PC wars, climate change and Plimer’s new book: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25444732-5000117,00.html
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch