In the aftermath of revelations of “Climategate,” proponents of the theory of manmade climate change are ramping up the rhetoric in the remaining days before the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, where they will press for extreme measures to combat climate change.
The “Climategate” scandal involves a network of scientists committed to the theory of manmade climate change who allegedly worked to suppress data that undermines their theory. But now media outlets are promoting a report by 26 scientists who are promoting an even more extreme global-warming model than had been advocated previously.
An article by Bill Blakemore for ABCNews.com (“Global Warming Report Finds Time Running Out”), one utterly lacking in any critical tone, presents a series of extreme projections as fact in the almost complete absence of acknowledgment that such models are extremely controversial.
Despite the fact that the evidence indicates that “global warming” (regardless of the warming’s source) has presently halted — and that the relationship between so-called “greenhouse gases” and global temperatures is nowhere near as easy to calculate as computerized models had previously presented — Blakemore begins by declaring that the “end of the world” is at hand:
There’s even less time for humanity to try to curb global warming than recently thought, according to a new in-depth scientific assessment by 26 scientists from eight countries.
Sea level rise, ocean acidification and the rapid melting of massive ice sheets are among the significantly increased effects of human-induced global warming assessed in the survey, which also examines the emissions of heat-trapping gases that are causing the climate change.
"Many indicators are currently tracking near or above the worst-case projections" made three years ago by the world’s scientists, the new Copenhagen Diagnosis said.
So what do these roughly two dozen scientists say must happen?
The scientists also calculate that the world’s emissions of heat-trapping gases must peak in less than 10 years and then dive quickly to nearly zero, if warming of more than another 2 degrees Fahrenheit above the current annual global temperature is to be prevented after 2050.
That’s right: Greenhouse gases must “dive quickly to nearly zero.” This doesn’t mean simply eliminating industrial revolution; it means, in essence, eliminating human activity altogether. Considering the fact that a quarter of all “manmade” methane — one of the most important gases in the global-warming debate — is produced through “enteric fermentation” (that is, in the digestive tract of humans and domesticated animals), the absurdity of the position that is being advocated is readily apparent. Since human beings also release carbon dioxide in significant quantities simply by breathing — let alone doing such horrible things as driving automobiles or mowing their lawns — the extreme character of the demands of these 26 scientists is revealed for what it is.
While Blakemore trumpets the fact that the scientists behind the “Copenhagen Diagnosis” all apparently donated their time in producing their report, the pretension in the self-designated title is worthy of note. But surely a report such as this required some financial support? Yes, indeed — and it received that support from a company associated with Al Gore.
According to Blakemore:
"The money we needed for basic transportation to get us to and from our big global review session in Copenhagen in March and for basic communication expenses turned up from the Live Earth philanthropy," Somerville said.
Live Earth, founded by producer Kevin Wall, in partnership with former Vice President Al Gore, is a for-profit company that uses concerts, media and other events to encourage awareness worldwide about environmental issues.
"They’ve had no influence or involvement of any kind with the report itself," he said. "That is entirely under the control of the 26 authors from the eight countries, all widely respected — and many of them are lead authors of IPCC studies. They’re known quantities in the peer-reviewed science world."
Certainly the statement is correct that Gore and company did not edit the report; but it is also reasonable to assume that such financial support from Live Earth would not have been forthcoming for a group of scientists who oppose the anthropogenic climate-change theory.
Blakemore’s environmental evangelism reaches its crescendo at the conclusion of the article with the threat of the “end of the world” unless the industrialized world repents of its ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions:
It says this would be what’s sometimes called "a global tipping point," in which many amplifying feedbacks around the world produce a cumulative effect in which Earth enters a "change in state, carried by its own internal dynamics."
Many amplifying feedbacks are closely monitored by scientists, including thawing tundra and dying forest releasing massive amounts of heat-trapping CO2, and the way in which the growing amount of darkened land absorbs more of the sun’s heat, thus further warming the ground and air.
Such a "change of state" could be uncontrollable, and possibly, some have worried, so fast that food supplies and human civilization in general would collapse.
Of this most frightening prospect, the report says clearly: "There is as yet no strong evidence that the Earth as a whole is near such a threshold. Instead ‘amplified’ climate change is a much better description of what we currently observe and project for the future."
In other words, though painful changes are apparently coming in the next few decades and before there is a chance of getting Earth’s rising annual global temperature to level off, there is still time, according to the latest science, to avoid the very worst.
At least, it says, "there is as yet no strong evidence" that such an overall threshold "is near."
Recent revelations raise serious questions about the entire theory underlying such fearmongering. A growing number of outspoken scientists and economists are questioning whether there is “strong evidence” for any aspect of the climate-change model, let alone the catastrophic predictions of these scientists.
