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?
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