Global Warming Fails Scientific Method
July 20, 2007
In our numerous discussions of global warming on my radio show, I'm often assailed by proponents of the theory as someone who is not a scientist and who doesn't understand the scientific method. Each summer they come out of the woodwork, prognosticating some dire scenario unless we change our evil capitalist ways. I remind them that it's summer. It's supposed to be hot. After also reminding them that Al Gore is no scientist, either, I direct them to some of the facets of the scientific method to prove my point.
'Prediction' is the third facet of the scientific method. Information must be valid for observations past, present and future. That alone shoots global warming out of the water. There is no pattern. They cannot predict it. They've told us for the last two years that these were going to be the worst hurricane seasons on record because of global warming. They were wrong last year and so far this year we've had a grand total of 2 storms - one a tropical depression, the other a tropical storm with top winds of 40 mph.
They point to recent droughts. I point to a drought of my childhood in which the local river, which supplied water to the area, completely dried up to the point that we were able to walk across it. It's almost as if global warming invented the drought (much like Al Gore invented the Internet).
The fifth facet is 'identification of causes.' Al Gore points to CO2 as the cause with absolutely no evidence to back him up. He can't explain the fact that we've warmed and cooled alternately four times in the last 100 years. He can't explain why scientists in the 1970s were warning of a coming "global cooling" and predicting certain European countries would be under ice by the end of the century.
Which leads to the sixth facet of scientific method - 'time-order relationship.' Scientists are now discovering from ice cores that CO2 levels do indeed rise but they rise AFTER there's been a warming. Their theory is warming causes the oceans to emit CO2 as they warm. They take Al Gore's CO2/warming chart and demonstrate that the CO2 definitely follows the warming. Al has it backwards.
Then there's the eighth and final facet of the scientific method - 'elimination of plausible alternatives.' There's mounting evidence that hyper activity by the sun leads to periods of warming. Evidence supporting that is the fact that Mars is heating at exactly the same rate as we are. There's no explanation for that other than our common heat source, the sun. Unless Al wants to argue that the Mars rover was an SUV.
The bottom line is this: To take actual temperature readings from the last 100 years and make some judgment is akin to taking a grain of sand from a beach and determining how long and how wide the beach is. In short, it's a matter of insufficient data, something any scientist can understand. We just don't have enough information nor do we understand climate patterns enough to begin dismantling our entire system on some theory. Sure, ice cores can give us more data but they don't provide the complete picture. CO2 is simply not a pollutant. It's what we exhale. It's what plants take in to make oxygen.
I am a big fan of clean air and clean water. I have a strong desire to live in a clean environment and leave a healthy living environment for my children. Let's do something about pollution but first let's clear the air on global warming.