The Science of Climate Change

You've all heard the statistics: "98% of climate scientists believe Climate Change is real". But what does that even mean? Define "real". Please provide a peer-reviewed mathematical study to support that statistic. Who was selected in the survey? How were the questions worded? Perhaps no one can provide support for the often-quoted statistic because no true, scientific study was ever done to come up with the number.

The very core of true science is skepticism. A scientist who does not doubt, and then test the data for himself, is not really practicing science. Any scientific study that is published without extensive peer-review does not pass the rigor that the scientific community requires. If 98% of scientists agree on anything it is right to question their objectivity.

The idea that the speed of light is a constant and nothing can go faster than light, has been proven over and over. But that does not mean that scientists are not trying to find a way to prove it wrong. If they did so they would get a Nobel prize and the implications for space travel would be enormous. True scientists love proving accepted science wrong. They long for the day when they can find a new theory that changes traditional understanding.

So do 98% of Climate Scientists agree that Climate Change is "real" and "caused by humans"? Richard Lindzen, an MIT atmospheric physicist and one of the world's leading climatologists says no. Watch his video on YouTube:

Climate Change: What Do Scientists Say?

But he does talk about some areas where most Climate Scientists agree. The following points are quoted from the transcript:

1. The climate is always changing.
2. CO₂ is a greenhouse gas without which life on earth is not possible, but adding it to the atmosphere should lead to some warming.
3. Atmospheric levels of CO₂ have been increasing since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 19th century.
4. Over this period (the past two centuries), the global mean temperature has increased slightly and erratically by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit or one degree Celsius; but only since the 1960’s have man’s greenhouse emissions been sufficient to play a role.
5. Given the complexity of climate, no confident prediction about future global mean temperature or its impact can be made. The IPCC acknowledged in its own 2007 report that “The long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

So, perhaps there is no cause for alarm. Perhaps we should ignore all the hype in the media, sleep well, and forget about all the warnings of Climate Change. But while there may not be cause for alarm, perhaps there is cause for concern. 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit may sound trivial, but is it? NASA has been taking pictures from space for decades and what they show are some things we should be concerned about. Pictures from space show massive melting of glaciers on both the North and South Poles. They also show the effects of deforestation, the steady southern growth of the Sahara Desert, the drying up of massive lakes, the effects of local flooding, and so forth.

Now some of you who lean stronger towards skepticism (which is perfectly OK) may argue that NASA is a government agency and part of the political establishment which exaggerates Climate Change claims for political purposes. Fair enough. But all I ask is that you go to the web site and look at the pictures for yourself in the link below:

NASA Climate Change and Global Warming

If you question NASA's objectivity and think they may be doing bad science, I ask you: Can bad science put self-driving rovers on Mars that last for many years past expectations? Can bad science send probes to every planet in the Solar System including Pluto? (Pluto will always be a planet to me, in fact, it is my favorite and I wrote a poem about it, see the Poetry section 😏). Can bad science design and implement the GPS system which we depend on daily? Can bad science design and use the Hubble telescope and even upgrade it in space? Can bad science work cooperatively with the European Space Agency to land on a comet? The list goes on and on.

So having looked at two different points of view, what conclusions can we make? For me, I agree that much of the Climate Change hype and hysteria needs to be taken with a certain amount of skepticism. But I'm not ready to say it is all a "hoax". While it is true that we cannot predict the future, we have much to be concerned about in the present. Climate change may not be "real", but here are some things that are: 

• Massive deforestation, 
• Massive melting of polar ice caps, 
• Massive growth of the Sahara and other deserts, 
• Massive amounts of plastic waste,
• Massive extinction of various plants and animals,
• Massive killing of coral reefs and the animals that use them. 
• Massive problems finding clean drinking water.

The following YouTube video dramatically shows the effects of rising temperatures which are melting Arctic icecaps:

Greenland's ice sheet is facing disaster

Perhaps the overemphasis on the burning of fossil fuels has been a distraction that has taken our attention away from other environmental problems that are not tomorrow but today. But there is a plus side to looking for alternatives to fossil fuels: Many countries have woken up to the fact that they import far too much energy from parts of the world that are politically unstable, for example, the Middle East, Venezuela, and Russia.

There is a more important reason to seek alternatives to fossil fuels, which is that it allows nations to set their own energy future. Green energy is local. The sun and the wind are local. The irony for those who want to use Climate Change as an excuse for a large top-down socialistic world government is that the exact opposite is actually happening as we speak. There is a bottoms-up capitalistic innovation going on and people are becoming less dependent on the government, not more.

I have been collecting videos that show many different ways that ordinary people, without the force of government mandates or oppressive regulations are becoming more energy independent through innovative uses of solar and wind. People are fighting back against problems by getting clean drinking water, replanting forests, and making interesting uses of plastic waste. People are burning trash, coal, and oil more efficiently, with fewer emissions. People are creating jobs and helping their local economies. In future posts, I will show some of these videos. Just watch the videos and see that ordinary people are solving their own problems without big government.