Monker M. Monker
Somewhere in cyberspace
Novenber 26, 2009
Myth Maker (aka Fact Finder)
Environmental Destruction Agency
Somewhere over the Rainbow
Dear Myth Maker:
I write in regard to the latest cut and paste note that you posted from a well known climate change critic who generaly has no belief that man can affect the environment of the Earth. He would rather make a living by using his status as a professor and climate change critic to sell books and further his critique of his collegues on the subject and generaly give others (like yourself) the tools to act like an ass.
It has often been said by many in his position that they are going to 'put this issue to rest.' I find it ironic that this statement has to be constantly repeated. It is like some undead creature which can not be killed and keeps coming back. Perhaps there is an obvious reason for this. Perhaps, like an untrained marksman, they keep missing the target. Or, perhaps, there is more truth in what is being said then they want, or have the capacity, to believe.
As for his claim that their should be 'precisely one model', perhaps he should be reminded that in science there is never one way of doing things. There are different models for predicting tomorrow's weather, let alone the climate 20yrs from now. Even in other areas of science there are always competing theories and different ways of looking at the universe. I would expect somebody with a PHD to know that and not write such a conclusive statement that there should be precisely one model. Perhaps he has an obvious agenda that makes him forget that not even Newton and Einstein's theories agree...and quantum mechanics doesn't even agree with Einstein.
He mentions amplifiers and tipping points and compares them to the alarmist warnings which various people have been making. What he fails to say is that we are turning up the Earth's amplifier and we really have no clear idea when that 'tipping point' will be where we artificialy push the climate to the rail. Even by his own analogy, this WILL eventualy happen.
In one statement he complains that alarmists do not state where the CO2 value would be if we never burned a fossil fuel. In the very next statement he makes an argument that the oceans release CO2 as the Earth warms. But, he himself fails to mention how much CO2 has been released in todays climate compared to the climate of the "little ice age". A can of soda goes stale after it is opened and allowed to warm because it has released it's CO2, it will also release its CO2 if it is shaken or a Menthos is dropped into it. So it goes with the ocean (and any other body of H2O)...there are other factors to consider during cause and affect. To simply state ONE without any data to support the claim AND any consideration towards other facts is both misleading and disengenious.
He also contradicts himself by first stating that nobody predicted the current cooling phase and then later asks how CO2 can be the cause for the current warming. Before he writes such letters and others cut and paste then, perhaps they should know exactly what they are arguing for and against.
He has also makes assumptions in an attempt to argue that warmer climate is a good thing. What he ignores is the negative impacts it may have on people all around the world, as sea levels rise and what were once mild climates become overly hot and dry. This affects humanity and wildlife alike...and the results are, in my opinion, very unpredictable. But, to state the good without the bad is also misleading and disengenious. Personaly, I wonder why humanity is making a consious decistion to run such a grand experiment on the Earth, when it can, and in my opinion - should, be avoided.
Yes, we have been here before. Such as when one theory said the Earth was the ceneter of the universe, or that the Earth was flat. ALL scientific theories have their opposition and even competing theories. All are built on observation and study. I believe we are stewards of the Earth. We should be doing what is right to ensure humanity is not affecting the Earth is such a drastic way...especialy when it is obviously avoidable.
Fact Finder wrote:Howard C. Hayden
785 S. McCoy Drive
Pueblo West, CO 81007
October 27, 2009
The Honorable Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator
Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20460
Dear Administrator Jackson:
I write in regard to the Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, Proposed Rule, 74 Fed. Reg. 18,886 (Apr. 24, 2009), the so-called "Endangerment Finding."
It has been often said that the "science is settled" on the issue of CO2 and climate. Let me put this claim to rest with a simple one-letter proof that it is false.
The letter is s, the one that changes model into models. If the science were settled, there would be precisely one model, and it would be in agreement with measurements.
Alternatively, one may ask which one of the twenty-some models settled the science so that all the rest could be discarded along with the research funds that have kept those models alive.
We can take this further. Not a single climate model predicted the current cooling phase. If the science were settled, the model (singular) would have predicted it.
Let me next address the horror story that we are approaching (or have passed) a "tipping point." Anybody who has worked with amplifiers knows about tipping points. The output "goes to the rail." Not only that, but it stays there. That's the official worry coming from the likes of James Hansen (of NASAGISS) and Al Gore.
But therein lies the proof that we are nowhere near a tipping point. The earth, it seems, has seen times when the CO2 concentration was up to 8,000 ppm, and that did not lead to a tipping point. If it did, we would not be here talking about it. In fact, seen on the long scale, the CO2 concentration in the present cycle of glacials (ca. 200 ppm) and interglacials (ca. 300-400 ppm) is lower than it has been for the last 300 million years.
Global-warming alarmists tell us that the rising CO2 concentration is (A) anthropogenic and (B) leading to global warming.
(A) CO2 concentration has risen and fallen in the past with no help from mankind. The present rise began in the 1700s, long before humans could have made a meaningful contribution. Alarmists have failed to ask, let alone answer, what the CO2 level would be today if we had never burned any fuels. They simply assume that it would be the "pre-industrial" value.
The solubility of CO2 in water decreases as water warms, and increases as water cools. The warming of the earth since the Little Ice Age has thus caused the oceans to emit CO2 into the atmosphere.
(B) The first principle of causality is that the cause has to come before the effect. The historical record shows that climate changes precede CO2 changes. How, then, can one conclude that CO2 is responsible for the current warming?
Nobody doubts that CO2 has some greenhouse effect, and nobody doubts that CO2 concentration is increasing. But what would we have to fear if CO2 and temperature actually increased?
A warmer world is a better world. Look at weather-related death rates in winter and in summer, and the case is overwhelming that warmer is better.
The higher the CO2 levels, the more vibrant is the biosphere, as numerous experiments in greenhouses have shown. But a quick trip to the museum can make that case in spades. Those huge dinosaurs could not exist anywhere on the earth today because the land is not productive enough. CO2 is plant food, pure and simple.
CO2 is not pollution by any reasonable definition.
A warmer world begets more precipitation.
All computer models predict a smaller temperature gradient between the poles and the equator. Necessarily, this would mean fewer and less violent storms.
The melting point of ice is 0 ºC in Antarctica, just as it is everywhere else. The highest recorded temperature at the South Pole is -14 ºC, and the lowest is -117 ºC. How, pray, will a putative few degrees of warming melt all the ice and inundate Florida, as is claimed by the warming alarmists?
Consider the change in vocabulary that has occurred. The term global warming has given way to the term climate change, because the former is not supported by the data. The latter term, climate change, admits of all kinds of illogical attributions. If it warms up, that's climate change. If it cools down, ditto. Any change whatsoever can be said by alarmists to be proof of climate change.
In a way, we have been here before. Lord Kelvin "proved" that the earth could not possibly be as old as the geologists said. He "proved" it using the conservation of energy. What he didn't know was that nuclear energy, not gravitation, provides the internal heat of the sun and the earth.
Similarly, the global-warming alarmists have "proved" that CO2 causes global warming.
Except when it doesn't.
To put it fairly but bluntly, the global-warming alarmists have relied on a pathetic version of science in which computer models take precedence over data, and numerical averages of computer outputs are believed to be able to predict the future climate. It would be a travesty if the EPA were to countenance such nonsense.
Best Regards,
Howard C. Hayden
Professor Emeritus of Physics, UConn
