Save The Planet – More Fiction Than Fact I’m not a scientist, nor a member of any organization whose purpose is to save the environment or preserve endangered species. I love clean air and water and the beauty of nature as much as anybody else, but for some time, I’ve been skeptical of the motives of environmental and animal rights organizations. So I decided to read as much as I could, pro and con, about man’s technological influence on environmental changes and endangered species of animals. It’s been over a year since I began poking around in the library and on the internet, reading about global warming and the greenhouse effect and efforts to preserve some of our most notable endangered species. It’s been very dry reading and my lack of a scientific background makes it even more difficult to understand the numerous theories and computer models used by the scientific community to predict what they think our environment will be like 50 or 100 or 1000 years from now. Nevertheless, after wading through a lot a material, I’ve come to some conclusions based upon what I’ve read. They are: - The theory of global warming, simply stated, is that mankind is altering the earth’s delicate thermostat by spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning coal and oil. CO2, along with other man-made gases, such as methane - will enhance the earth’s natural "greenhouse effect" to the point of uncontrollable temperature rise, ultimately resulting in farmland drought and catastrophic flooding caused by melting polar ice caps. - There are respected scientists on both sides of the global warming argument, but it is the political environmental lobby that most influences scientific organizations like the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) to expound on their unproven theories. The environmental lobby has a serious agenda in mind. For some time now, their goals have been to not only dramatically increase fuel efficiency but to eventually phase out the internal-combustion engine, establish carbon taxes, and eliminate the use of coal and oil-fired energy production. They want the U.S. to enter into binding international agreements to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. - The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has been seeking 60 to 80 per cent reductions in greenhouse emissions from human activities for some time now. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, even a 20 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions, (to which we are already committed by the Clinton administration) would require a carbon tax forcing the price of electricity to double, oil prices to triple, and the cost of coal to quintuple. Stabilizing emissions worldwide would require a fundamental restructuring of the global economy. Carbon taxes are a significant part of our current skyrocketing oil prices. Politicians supported by environmentalists continue to bash the oil companies for price increases, but they never mention these taxes, do they? - In 1991, a statement sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) warned of the catastrophic consequences for climate, agriculture, plant and animal species, and worldwide coastlines because of global warming, which they viewed as the most serious environmental threat of the 21st century. Since then, at least 50 and more likely over 100 respected and well-known members of the world-wide scientific community have published peer-reviewed articles contradicting many parts of the global-warming theory. In addition, these scientists point out that only a few of the 200 plus who signed the 1991 UCS statement were climate specialists. After these appeals were released, the National Academy of Sciences warned its colleagues against speaking on subjects about which they could claim no special knowledge. Unfortunately, this did little to deter the environmentalists, who have tended to show open irritation at any attempt to question the threat they have proclaimed. Al Gore himself, dismissed any disagreement as mere bickering, getting in the way of what needs to be done. - There is no solid scientific evidence to support the theory that the earth is warming because of man-made greenhouse gases. Among the many scientists and climate specialists who agree with this statement are Jeffrey Salmon, executive director of the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, D.C. and S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental studies at the University of Virginia and director of the Environmental Policy Project, also in Washington, D.C. - One of the primary reasons these scientists and many others, refute the theory of global warming, is that computer models used to predict global temperature increases have consistently failed to reproduce current climate trends accurately, therefore making these models totally invalid for predicting future temperature changes. There is not, nor ever was a scientific consensus in support of climate catastrophes, as so often claimed by political types. Climate forecasts are simply the result of still quite primitive "models" of the real atmosphere fed into giant computers. - There is still no observable evidence as yet that global warming is taking place - despite an increase in CO2 and other atmospheric gases. - More scientists are becoming skeptical of predictions of a major global warming in the 21st century. Many of the models used to predict climate changes don’t even agree with each other. Their forecasts depend on the detailed way they are set up. There was substantial evidence discovered by a reporter who published an article in "Science" magazine that modelers engaged in "fudging" to make their models come up with the correct numbers. One MIT group deliberately put an error into their model so that too much moisture was transported through the atmosphere. When this model was projected into a future with higher atmospheric CO2, the model predicted Atlantic Ocean currents with dire consequences for world climate. The actual greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon, existing eons before humans even appeared on the scene. It comes largely from water vapor in the atmosphere which warms the earth by trapping some of the heat from the sun and keeping it in the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases also trap heat, but most greenhouse heating comes from water vapor. The warming effect of all these gases combined maintains average global temperatures at a comfortable 65 degrees F. Without the greenhouse effect, the average temperature would be about 10 degrees below zero F, and the earth would resemble the planet Mars. So today’s ruckus has very little to do with the actual greenhouse effect. It has to do with changes that human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, have produced and will produce on the earth’s natural climate-control system. This planet has existed for an estimated four and a half billion years. It has withstood millions of earthquakes, tidal waves, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tornadoes, mudslides, landslides, forest fires, floods, meteors, meteorites, magnetic polarization and magnetic reversals, evolving from one age to another. It is also estimated that of all the species of animals, including reptiles, fish, birds, etc., living on this earth four and a half billion years ago, only about 10% remain today. The industrial revolution began a little over 200 years ago. This represents the time most environmentalists believe man first became a threat to "our" environment. Does anyone really believe that man, in a few hundred years, can cause more erosion, pollution, and climatic change than what took place in the previous four and a half billion years? As far as animals are concerned, nature has a way of causing them to become extinct and it appears that no matter what we do or don’t do, when their time comes, they will become extinct like their predecessors. There are many underreported facts never known to unsuspecting persons eager to support the activities of the politically motivated environmentalists. There are more trees in many locations today than decades ago because the lumber industry has voluntarily replanted trees from forests partially depleted. There is more natural sediment on the ocean floor, surfacing each day, then all the oil slicks from tanker spills and off-shore drilling could ever come close to matching. There has been such a burden placed upon the U.S. manufacturing industry by excessive environmental taxes, unrealistic and prohibitive costly compliance requirements, penalties and fines, that the EPA and environmentalist groups have literally put many companies out of business, driven other companies to out-sourcing, and forced others to totally relocate their operating facilities to foreign countries with less stringent environmental laws. It is pretty obvious what the environmentalist agenda is. This agenda is confirmed by examining the educational backgrounds and political ideologies of the scientists, lobbyists, politicians and of course the media, who have created this nightmare and continue to push the environmental envelope. Most of the scientists are secular humanists, many from schools such a MIT, where these elite are weaned. Their goal is to bring capitalism as we know it, to its knees. They view themselves as future leaders of a global socialistic economy and culture. They have been able to gain considerable power and support from European leaders, mostly socialists who also want to share in this elitism and power. The naïve victims of this mad, grandiose, plan are ordinary people, especially those who are sincerely concerned about the environment, who have been mislead with utopian, unattainable visions of a future with electric cars and Solar energy.
Copyright © 2004 Richard Koss |