1. Many instances of recent 'unusual' climate, while attributed to the effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, can be more readily attributed to natural climate variations or other causes. Both global temperature increase and sea level rise have been occurring for the last 150 years, since at least the end of the little ice age, and at about the same rate as at present; arctic ice has been decreasing because of the change in wind patterns while antarctic ice has been increasing; damage from hurricane Katrina was the result of poor planning, not a severe storm; the 1998 coral bleaching event was caused by an exceptional El Nino Southern Oscillation ....
2. The recent history of predicted but unrealized environmental and health related catastrophes should call into question any predictions, even five or 10 years into the future, let alone 100 years. These include: global cooling and a new ice age (twice), DDT, alar, insecticide associated with cancer; acid rain; air pollution; severe natural resource depletion; bird flu; ozone depletion; and a heterosexual AIDS epidemic. All were hyped as catastrophes, some of them predicted to be only five or ten years into the future – and all wrong. Why should we believe the same alarmism now, and from some of the same people?
3. There are a number of behaviors that lead one to believe that even the global warming (GW) believers aren’t confident of their position: a refusal to debate the science; insistence that there is a consensus when there is none; refusal to supply data so that conclusions can be checked by others; reliance on computer models that are kept from public scrutiny; they see no need to comment on or even acknowledge data which contradict their claims; the nomenclature was changed from ‘global warming’, when the data began to show that the warming had stopped, to ‘climate change’, as if the environmentalists had suddenly discovered what everyone else knew — that a changing climate is the rule rather than the exception.
4. Many statements about the climate in support of GW are not true: the temperature is neither rising at an unprecedented nor an accelerating rate; CO2 is not a pollutant; GW will not cause more and more severe storms; receding glaciers are not proof of GW; sea level rise is not accelerating; scientists have not proved that man-made CO2 is causing GW; CO2 is neither the only nor the most important greenhouse gas; present and projected atmospheric CO2 levels are not unprecedented; many scientists dispute the claims of GW alarmists; the Pacific islands are not drowning; the snows of Kilimanjaro are not melting....
5. A warmer climate with a somewhat increased CO2 level is much healthier for both plant and animal life: already, with the increased CO2 in the atmosphere, crop yields have risen by as much as 40 percent; warmer temperatures mean a longer growing season, more land, and more precipitation available for agriculture; modestly higher temperatures also, in general, favor species proliferation. All of these benefits are confirmed by historical data. For humans, energy consumption for home cooling will increase less than energy consumption from home heating will decrease, thus reducing overall fossil fuel consumption.
6. It is the responsibility of the GW believers to make their case and to answer all reasonable objections to their claims. If the remediation measures were implemented that are proposed to address the alarmist projections of future temperature increases, the cost is an estimated $15 trillion and the measures would devastate not only the developed world but would also mean continued and even more dire poverty for the undeveloped world as well. For this price, one would expect to have access to all of the data and all of the models in order to truly determine if they are being handled properly.
7. Recent events have revealed an attempt to manipulate the information and control the GW message: rarely are data presented in a balanced way; generally, the alarming projections from the models are discussed without any information on the assumptions; and there was a concerted attempt to present information that would call into question the medieval warm period, because its presence put the lie to claims that we were experiencing historically “unprecedented” warming.
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