A Presumption Of Stasis

Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has been voicing contrary views about global warming for years now, has an interesting piece in Newsweek that should make you think. He points out what should be rather obvious: most of the screeching from the true believers in an anthropogenic cause for global warming hinges on a belief that we live in the absolutely perfect global environment right now and that any warming would be catastrophic.

Why? They never explain why any change – either warming or cooling – is anything out of the ordinary or is any real cause for concern. In fact, in order to marshal up hysteria over their "proof" they have to ignore the constant fluctuations in the environment over millions of years which obviously had nothing to do with humans causing them. All this is done using computer models that are purported to be uber-accurate about predictions decades from now. Despite the fact that meteorologists can't accurately predict the weather next week.

April 16, 2007 issue – Judging from the media in recent months, the debate over global warming is now over. There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are almost certainly true. What of it? Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a crisis requiring urgent action. This statement has nothing to do with science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we've seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe. What most commentators—and many scientists—seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes. The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's no such thing as an optimal temperature—a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.

Do read the entire thing. Lindzen is a huge thorn in the side of the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming™ for a very good reason. He's rather good a pointing out the Emperor's lack of knickers. Which is why the true believers want all debate closed off and critics silenced. They hate trying to answer these annoying questions. Which is why they resort to name-calling and high-volume screeching at people who disagree with them. But why is this climate right at this instant in time the perfect range of temperatures? Why is Mars warming up at almost exactly the same rate as the Earth? Why are people who use 20 times more energy than the average American (and own strip mines to boot) anointed as saints of the First Church? Why is diverting food into the grossly inefficient production of ethanol more beneficial for the planet than feeding people?

A lot of the true believers like to try and smear anyone who disagrees with them as tools of the energy companies (Lindzen actually has a disclaimer about that at the bottom of his piece). But they appear to be completely oblivious to the way they are being used by the people who stand to make gobs of money from peddling fake indulgences to true believers who buy into the theory of a nonexistent global climate stasis.