The Public Policy: Some Like It Hot
Robinson, Arthur B. & Robinson, Noah
THE PUBLIC POLICY by Arthur B. Robinson and Noah Robinson Some Like It Hot E veryone knows by now that the Earth is ill. It must be because its temperature is reported to be rising. Well, it's...
...Within this trend there are smaller cycles, up and down, and we don't have enough information to know exactly where we are within such cycles...
...26 25 20 1000 -500 0 500 Year What will temperatures be during the coming century and beyond...
...The balloons and satellites confirm each other (and showed no warming), but the surface record appears to be different...
...Documenting the natural factors that affect the Earth's temperature—especially that of the sun—will allow us to prevent such political disasters...
...The technological advances that enable us to improve our environment generally depend upon increasing energy use...
...The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind...
...No one knows...
...1,000 years ago known as the Medieval Climate Optimum, so named because the recorded climate was unusually benign...
...1Y gas —the primary energy sources that fuel world technology—took comfort in this announcement, which, they claimed, supported their campaign to demonize fossil fuels...
...Clearly seen are the Little Ice Age and the much warmer period about ARTHUR B. ROBINSON and NOAH ROBINSON are chemists at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine...
...The executive branch is run by Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who have a mutually beneficial "relationship" with groups that are in the global warming business...
...American scientists have pointed out that 24 The global warming business could bankrupt our Earth...
...The 300- year trend and the fluctuations within it are closely correlated with solar activity...
...Geologists know, however, that those glaciers have come and gone many times as Earth's temperature has risen and fallen during past millennia...
...Well, it's not so simple...
...Medieval Climate Optimum k Temperature of Sargasso Sea Little Ice Age 1000 1500 2000 50 April 2000 • The American Spectator the Earth could be cooled relatively inexpensively by blocking solar radiation using present technology...
...The accompanying graph places all this in historical perspective...
...For this reason, research on atmospheric temperatures has taken on a new urgency...
...Uncertainty about natural phenomena should not become the excuse for governments to restrict the use of fossil fuels, but the crazy fact is that if the sun continues its 30o-year warming trend, in the next few years environmentalists may succeed in closing down half of humanity's energy supplies...
...This provides detailed support for the long-term correlation of solar activity and Earth temperature...
...Atmospheric scientists, standing on the shoulders of electronic and space technologists, are beginning to understand our atmosphere...
...I thas been difficult, therefore, to resolve certain differences that have arisen between surface measurements and those in the lower atmosphere...
...The panel included some excellent scientists...
...The surface record is plagued by problems—the most notable being a bias toward measurements in urban locations where local warming gives artificially high values...
...Surface temperature may indeed be rising—though that is not certain—but atmospheric temperature is not...
...It is, therefore, especially tragic that the facts discovered by scientists are now being distorted and misrepresented for political purposes by environmentalist organizations, politicians, and unscrupulous businessmen...
...Moreover, should our distant descendants ever wish to adjust the Earth's thermostat, they could more easily adjust it downward, rather than upward...
...From past changes, however, it is known that any such increase would likely occur gradually over many thousands of years...
...Derived from isotope ratios in the skeletons of marine organisms deposited in the Sargasso Sea, this record shows temperatures during the past three millennia...
...It said that "major advances" in scientific methods would be needed before the uncertainties could be resolved...
...There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate...
...If recent trends continue, however, our environment will be much improved...
...The report itself told a story at odds with the press release...
...This petition, whose signers include many of America's most prominent scientific figures, reads: (Continued on page 67) The American Spectator • April 2000 51 Classifieds The Public Policy/ Robinson and Robinson (Continued from page sr) We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals...
...A recent study compared 27-day averages of solar activity and atmospheric temperature, and found that these two phenomena are very closely correlated...
...Earth temperatures are now near the 3,00o-year average and not unusual...
...A warming trend began about 300 years ago, during the Little Ice Age, but this has nothing to do with human activity, or the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere...
...It also included some people whose political agendas and desire for research funds have apparently compromised their reliability...
...Those responsible for compiling the surface temperature work for the executive branch of the United States government, either directly or through tax-financed research grants...
...The values for California, for example, were measured in cities that have warmed from local heat-producing activities, whereas rural measuring stations showed no rise...
...If man-made global warming were real, we would expect not just surface but also atmospheric temperatures to rise...
...What they lack in technical training they make up for with the vast sums of money at their disposal...
...The last zo years have seen increased greenhouse gas release, so they had high hopes...
...Both Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Vice President Al Gore visited Glacier National Park to bewail the current diminution of its glaciers...
...Surface temperatures do seem to have risen a little —although it took the National Research Council panel most of 85 pages to agonize over this finding...
...This is the result of carbon dioxide fertilization...
...Opponents of the use of coal, oil, and natural C' Those glaciers have come and gone many times as Earth's temperature has risen and fallen during past millennia...
...It concluded, indecisively, that the disparity between the surface and atmospheric temperature trends was "probably at least partially real" (italics added...
...They desperately needed their long awaited "greenhouse signal," which they hoped would arrive with the new millennium...
...Measurements of South American rain forests show similar accelerations...
...Mankind is moving carbon from below-ground deposits of coal, oil, and natural gas into the atmosphere, where it is then used to make more plants and animals...
...In an effort to do this, the National Academy of Sciences recently convened a panel of eleven scientists who specialize in such temperature measurements...
...New Evidence Helps Reconcile Global Warming Discrepancies...
...Confirms That Earth's Surface Temperature is Rising," its headline read...
...They will continue to do so unless pseudo-environmentalism torpedoes our economic progress along with the hopes and futures of billions of people in the less developed world...
...This advance can eventually allow all human beings to live long, prosperous, healthy, productive lives...
...Surface temperatures, on the other hand, provide a poor relative measure of Earth temperature...
...We may eventually be able to make predictions about the atmosphere that will lead to improvements in the quality and quantity of human life...
...Trees are more strongly affected...
...The panel studied the accuracy of the surface temperature record and the atmospheric record as measured by satellites and weather balloons...
...They confuse "global warming" with "human-caused global warming" —leading people to believe that they are the same...
...The satellite orbit shifts each day, so that the entire Earth is observed over each three- to four-day period...
...No other single technological factor is more important than the continued, expanded, and unrationed use of the Earth's hydrocarbons, of which we now have proven resources to last more than i,000 years...
...Gradual, natural changes in the environment have been distorted by politicians...
...A list of the petition signers is available at www.oism.org/pproject...
...Astronomers cannot yet predict future solar activity...
...Satellites can also measure ground temperatures now, so the days of surface thermometers in climatology are numbered...
...Our scientists and engineers have provided the technological wealth that now finances most of our environmental programs...
...Their great frequencyalso allows theories involving short time intervals to be assessed...
...Already, plant growth and diversity—from the forests and fields of North America to the rain forests of South America—have shown a marked increase...
...Farm produchon is already increasing from carbon dioxide fertilization...
...According to the U.S...
...The climate models chosen to support the Kyoto plan to control and sharply reduce world energy use predict that atmospheric temperatures should have risen by an easily detectable one to two degrees Fahrenheit during the past two decades...
...Human-caused global warming is a myth...
...Because they use plants for food, animals have also increased...
...Hydrocarbons are needed to feed and lift from poverty vast numbers of people across the globe...
...Despite the headline, the panel failed to reconcile this difference...
...The panel also stated that the urban heat island effect (measurement of temperatures in localities where human activity artificially increases the readings) was a serious and unresolved problem...
...This has caused a problem for advocates of the Kyoto global warming treaty because satellites and weather balloons, whose measurements of temperature in the low- to mid-troposphere are in essential agreement, show no experimentally verifiable rise in global atmospheric temperature over the past 20 years...
...The global rationing of hydrocarbons planned by the Kyoto treaty would produce global poverty and death...
...Now they will have to rely entirely on their multi-million dollar media campaigns promoting a contrived and false perception of human-caused global warming...
...Will the sun and therefore the Earth ever become too warm to suit human activities...
...This Web-site also gives detailed references to the peer-reviewed scientific literature verifying the statements in this article and related supporting research...
...All this is bad news for the anti-technologists...
...Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth...
...Warming the Earth, however, is beyond the capabilities of modern science and engineering...
...Their study has now been completed...
...Energy is the currency of technological progress...
...Wheat crops in dry areas are growing io percent faster as a result of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases during the twentieth century (from 280 parts per million in 1900 to 36o in 2000...
...The problem ultimately is that when governments fund science, politics often prevails over truth...
...Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture, the total amount of large-treestanding timber in the United States alone has increased by 3o percent since 195o...
...No one knows...
...Studies indicate that North American forests are growing so fast that they are storing all of the human-released carbon from North America...
...Microwave instruments on satellites have been making more than 15,000 atmospheric temperature measurements per day...
...When this biological miracle stabilizes within one or two centuries, the plant and animal population of the Earth may have doubled...
...Satellite measurements are far superior to any surface record because they sample the whole Earth without bias...
...Young orange trees and pine trees are growing more than 25 percent faster...
...A press release announced its results on January 12, 2000...
...Meanwhile, opposition to their global plans continues to grow, including that from the more than r7,000 American scientists who have signed a petition opposing the Kyoto Treaty...
...We are now in a race between the irrational religion of pseudo-environmentalism and the truth about atmospheric science...
Vol. 33 • April 2000 • No. 3
