It leaves one clueless as to whether to bring out the madras and seersucker or stick with the wools and knits. Seventy degrees one day, freezing temperatures the next. Such is the spontaneous winter and spring Knoxville has witnessed this season. We all know that this can be blamed on global warming.
Or can it? There have long been conspiracy theorists claiming that global warming was a ploy by worldwide-wealth-envious “environmentalists” to break down the capitalist economy. Many dismissed these theorists as hotheaded (or “cool” headed) right-wingers who defied scientific research just to drive their luxury SUVs around the town.
It would make sense that these right-wingers feel this way. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has encouraged developed countries to levy “green taxes,” which would place taxes on goods or activities that pollute the environment. The United Nations has taken a similar position.
But these warming doubters may have actually jumped onto something else. Recent research has stumbled on some fascinating new facts that totally contradict the global warming movement. This evidence is so overwhelming that founder of the Weather Channel John Coleman — a stark opponent to warming theory — literally threatened to sue Al Gore over his film “An Inconvenient Truth.” Coleman stated that he was “amazed, appalled and offended” by the film’s presentation of global warming and calls it a “scam.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted last year that this winter would be much warmer due to global warming. As the world has seen, this winter has been one of the most bitterly cold winters the Earth has dealt with in years. Record snowfalls and temperature lows have been recorded across the globe. This is one small example of weather predictions proved wrong.
There are numerous flaws other than false predictions in the warming movement that are countered by new research. Some scientists have committed their efforts to really discovering what problems may exist rather than achieving some sort of political goal.
Ever heard of the claim that U.S. beaches will be under water in the foreseeable future because of rising sea levels caused by melting ice caps? According to five European scientists who have published a report in the journal Science, sea levels have actually fallen 560 feet since the age of the dinosaur (80 million years ago) and will continue to fall over the same span.
What about the average temperature of the earth rising one degree? The U.S. National Climate Data Center’s research concludes that there was a slight cooling trend between 1998 and 2005, and numerous other studies have concluded that this is the result of the natural warming/cooling cycle of the earth.
How about SUV’s causing all of that damage to the atmosphere? Scientists using U.N. data have learned that livestock emit more carbon through excrement than all automobile usage combined.
Polar bears on the brink of extinction? Not so, as the World Wildlife Fund concludes that most polar bear populations continue to remain stable and grow with no link to climate change. And Gore’s famous picture of stranded polar bears on melted ice caps? It was taken in August, when the ice has melted anyway.
This doesn’t mean the global warming movement is entirely wrong (though some of its conclusions are very questionable) and that the counter evidence is 100 percent accurate. The point is to do the research and get the facts straight before forming an opinion that man-made global warming is destroying the earth.
This is also not to discourage healthy environmental practices. If everybody wants to live in a pretty place, each player in the international community has to contribute some effort in keeping it that way. For the sake of pure efficiency, economic and otherwise, we must continue to recycle and develop better ways to maintain the natural elegance of the earth. The benefits to moderate “green” efforts are endless.
Global warming theorists propose drastic changes that would radicalize the way we live our lives. The earth is not at our mercy and recent evidence shows that we are not the driving force behind climate change. Warming theorists still refuse to consider these new findings when they should try to understand the argument holistically.
Science is objective and always has been. The basic premise of science is that nothing is ever wholly true, and the closest to truth in science are laws that exist because they’ve been tested thousands of times with the same result.
This is not the case with global warming. There’s a variety of scientific research that is far from conclusive enough to declare the “law” of human impact on the climate. Many scientists have blindly accepted the warming theory as fact and have neglected their duty as scientists to explore the other side and consider contradictory evidence.
And as for the early madras and seersucker this winter, we have that NOAA prediction to blame.
— Oliver Casey is a sophomore in enterprise management. He can be reached at [email protected].
