It all sounded great at the international conferences. Junketing at public expense while crying crocodile tears about the whole earth and simultaneously raising one's income from tax-financed grants seemed to be a double winner - and there was just enough hypothetical science to provide colorable camouflage for the whole exercise. Then the political power brokers and their owners weighed in, especially those with grandiose dreams of world control, since any excuse for manipulation of people on a world scale looked good to them. Their shills in the press took up the cause and the grants grew even larger and came with the added perk of public notoriety. Now, however, things are turning a little unpleasant. The power brokers, you see, meant business and have been passing laws based on the hypotheses in the research grant proposals - especially those about ozone holes and global warming. They do not seem to realize that such hypotheses are proffered primarily to keep tax money flowing to research and are often of little substance. After all, medical research grants have been able to promise pie in the sky without delivering. Why should the enviros be held to an accounting? As the effects of these new laws - replacement of all the refrigeration equipment in the world and an end to the expanded use of hydrocarbon fuels and other technology that is needed to maintain and improve human lives - have begun to be felt, a much harder look is being taken at the underlying hypotheses and relevant scientific data. Moreover, unlike the tens of millions of people who lost their lives when DDT was banned, many of those affected by the ozone and global warming scams are strong enough to be heard. Not to worry, say the power brokers, people will believe whatever we tell them through their TV sets and newspapers. The big lie technique will save us. Data does not matter. Get a bunch of enviro scientists together, and we'll claim they represent all scientists - most of the others will keep quiet or lose their grants. We'll ignore the rest. This, however, is not working. Truth and information spread easily today. So, the globalists are panicked. Award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to three of the ozone gurus is one indication of this. Previously, political statements were largely restricted to the Nobel Prize for Peace which, regardless of occasional worthy recipients, has become widely recognized as primarily a political tool. It is sickening to see the science prizes being used in this fashion. Henning Rodhe, a member of the Swedish Academy that awarded the prize, was quoted by Associated Press on October 11 as saying, "I personally hope that the Nobel prize will put some pressure on the participants. The timing of the prize is good in view of the Vienna meeting [a meeting in November to review a U.N. agreement to restrict use of CFCs].'' Maybe the ozone gurus should be given the Peace Prize, too. The peace of the grave will doubtless be enjoyed by the many people who die prematurely from the effects of junk science run amuck. (We do not mean that atmospheric science is junk or that careful studies of ozone or even of the hypothesis about CFCs should not be done. It is the self-interested exaggerations and falsehoods [with no corrective effort by these "prize winners''] with which this cause has been surrounded that are junk. Moreover, the science of the matter certainly does not deserve the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.) Other indicators of panic abound. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is quoted as four-square for the Chicken Little predictions on global warming and very widely so reported in the press - on the basis of a leaked draft labeled "DRAFT, FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY, DO NOT CITE/DISTRIBUTE.'' This draft deals solely with impacts and response options - all of the scientific data and evaluations are in another, still confidential document. (See R. C. Balling,
Graphs of ozone decreases are appearing frequently in the press. These graphs are often "corrected'' for solar effects and other truths that might confuse the reader, and they are smoothed to prevent display of ordinary variability. Also, the vertical axes are always adjusted so that a very small part of the vertical scale is visible. See
Access to Energy 21-3, November 1993, p 4, for a graph of world ozone levels showing the entire vertical axis, which removes cause for alarm.
The ozone level is supposed to worry us because lower ozone might allow more UV light to fall on us with a concomitant increase in skin cancer. While this is mostly a sham risk, the UV levels themselves are relevant. Since American research to measure these levels in the United States were terminated [after it was discovered that levels were actually fluctuating downward - an embarrassment to the ozone pan-demicists] along with the government career of the chief scientist at DOE after he suggested resumed UV measurement, the press treats us to UV graphs from Antarctica. It has been known for decades (even before release of CFCs) that levels of ozone and UV light fluctuate wildly in Antarctica. (See Access to Energy 21-1, p 4 and 21-5, pp 1-3.)
With UV light as the claimed danger from reduced ozone, one would think that the multibillion dollar global ozone research crowd would have UV monitors all over the United States. They are not, however, looking for truth. In fact, they are looking for fame and continued fortune studying underlying processes that can be hypothesized to affect UV light. (Actually, I wonder if they have some UV monitors quietly watching for the next natural upward fluctuation in UV - it will not fluctuate downward forever - before holding a press conference.) Meanwhile, the replacements for CFCs in refrigeration are now coming under enviro attack (see
Nature 376 "CFC alternatives under a cloud'' by S. E. Schwarzbach, pp 297-298 and T. K. Tromp, et al, pp 327-330); supersonic transportation is being described as an ozone menace (see "SST emissions cut stratospheric ozone'' by R. Lipkin, Science News 148 p 229); and K. Coale and colleagues are worried that their experiments showing ocean phytoplankton fertilization by added iron could be used to mitigate the global warming frenzy (see "Iron versus the Greenhouse'' by R.Monastersky,
Science News 148 pp 220-222). Too many enviros are clamoring for a unique place at the public trough at a time when the public is already surly over the prospect of losing its refrigeration.Even more cold water is being thrown on the global warming welfare system for mediocre and honesty-for-sale "scientists.'' Figures 3-5 are from
World Climate Report 1, No. 1 pp 3-4, P. O. Box 455, Ivy, VA 22945, and Figure 6 is from the weather issue of Kids Discover magazine. See also many back issues of Access to Energy.CO
2 and other greenhouse gases have risen substantially during the past 15 years, but global temperatures show no indications of significant rise. Figure 3 shows Antarctic temperatures normalized to 0 for the past four decades. Other regions are comparable, but Ant-arctica has been claimed to be a special case, since the enviros have recently discovered that icebergs are made in Antarctica. Each new large iceberg is now greeted with wails of concern about melting ice.Notice that there was an upward fluctuation (from an unusually cold period) in temperature in the 1960s. As a result of this fluctuation, no doubt S. Schneider at Stanford and his fellow travelers are nervously awaiting the next Nobel awards - hoping fervently that few will notice that this warming
preceded the greatest increase in release of greenhouse gases. Temperatures have not risen over the past 15 years.Figures 4 and 5 show the temperature values from hemispheric averages of satellite data. This data is superior to ground measurements, which tend to be affected by the amount of nearby human activity. The open circles show the actual data, while the closed circles show the temperature predicted by the global climate change models upon which the greenhouse gurus base their Noble hopes.
If we pump enough CO
2 into the atmosphere, we will probably eventually have enough warming to detect. Why worry about this? Much of humanity lives now in regions that are uncomfortably cold, so a little higher average temperature (with annual fluctuations still much larger than any likely systematic rise) would probably be welcomed.So far, the enviro answer to this has been more theoretical calculations by the same models that cannot reliably predict past temperature averages. They predict dryness where it is already dry, more rain for regions that already have enough, and generally worse conditions -somehow things never seem to be predicted as better anywhere. With skills provided by socialized education math programs, however, most people's eyes glaze over when considering these fancy calculations.
As a substitute, the enviros hope that, since many people live in coastal areas, fear of rising ocean levels will work. Careful research has not detected an increase in ocean levels, and, in any case, even the models predict at most small, slow sea level rises affecting only a few regions and easily countered by modest dikes.
Figure 6 shows the utter dishonesty with which these facts are being presented to American children. There is, so far, no greenhouse-caused detectable rise in global temperature or in sea level. The weather issue of
Kids Discover magazine portrays these facts with a colored figure showing ocean waves breaking over the Statue of Liberty and a "WARNING! WARNING! about the greenhouse effect.This fascinating combat between a mob of self-interested liars and the truth is proving to be one of the more interesting spectacles of this generation. The truth will win eventually, but what will be the near term outcome? I think that the enviros are going to lose - even in the near term. The public does not understand much of the scientific argument, but the public understands very well its immediate self-interest. Unfortunately, this will set a poor precedent for any real threats that may need to be countered by unpleasant actions in the future.
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Vol. 23, No. 3
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 23, No. 3 Date: November 01, 1995 01:17 PM Title: Technology and Lifespan
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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