Strict adherence to the scientific method over past centuries has led to the amazing discoveries that enrich human existence today. To be valid, scientific study must remain pure and uninfluenced by the agendas and beliefs of government and religion. Galileo, for example, was charged with heresy because he proved and promoted the ideas of Copernicus that the Earth and planets orbited the sun. It was the belief of the church that all heavenly bodies revolved around the earth.
So, when we hear it said that Climate Change caused by man is “settled science”, it is our duty to vigorously object. The issue continues to be how you interpret the empirical data that are being collected around the globe. The reason it is so important to use the scientific method in this kind of research is that man tends to confuse coincidence with correlation and then correlation with cause-and-effect. As an example, there is a pretty clear correlation between temperature rise and the increase in NFL salaries.
The media keeps telling us that 97% of climate scientists agree that the climate changes and they are highly confident that man is the primary cause of these changes. There is no empirical data, however, that clearly establishes a cause-and-effect relationship between anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide emissions and climate change. The problem is the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the US Global Change Research Program take it as a fact that anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide emissions are the primary driver of climate change. They claim that greenhouse gases resulting from human activity are the dominant cause of global warming since the mid 20th Century.
In truth, the warming trend began around 1900 and continues through today. Most knowledgeable scientists and nearly all geologists agree that the Little Ice Age ended around 1890. It is not surprising, therefore, that we have had a continual warming trend since then. Based on that fact alone, it is hard to understand how there can be so much confidence that man is primarily responsible for the continuation of the warming trend that ended the Little Ice Age over 100 years ago.
For the sake of argument, suppose we agree that global temperatures and sea levels are rising and that all natural catastrophes are due to climate change. Then the real issue is whether we have correctly identified the cause.
The so-called climate change contrarians and deniers believe that climate change is primarily driven by natural causes, while the government-funded climate scientists believe that man’s emissions of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the primary and in some cases the total cause of climate change. Geologic evidence that nearly all scientists agree upon is that we are in an interglacial period and have experienced a wonderful warming for the last 25,000 years, which is given rise to human civilization. In other words, mother nature has been responsible for at least 25,000 years of climate change but, all of a sudden, this one time it is caused by human activity.
It is plainly not logical that scientists who are so vocally confident that Carbon Dioxide is the root cause of global warming refuse to even consider the possibility that climate change is a natural phenomenon of our planet.
None of these climate experts is saying that we can stop the temperature and sea level rise. Their stated goal is a temperature rise of 2°C by 2100, an arbitrary “tolerable level” of change. If we are already experiencing right now all the disasters attributed to human-caused climate change based on Carbon Dioxide, what will happen to Earth and its population when we reach the “tolerable” 2°C increase?
It is hard to believe rational scientists do not acknowledge the possibility that the natural rate of climate change could cause a 2°C increase with little or no impact from human activity. If all this is happening regardless of any attempt to prevent it, it seems to us that an Adaptation Strategy is where we should be spending our time and resources. Instead, the agenda-driven scientists who control the media are demanding that we pool all our efforts and treasure into de-carbonizing the world and drastically lowering the standard of living for the vast majority of the world’s population.
As we learned with Galileo, when a political agenda funds and controls scientific research, the result cannot be used to determine public policy.
Robert Kappelmann and Dr. Dan Eichenbaum
Dr. Dan’s guest on Freedom Forum Radio this weekend is Robert Kappelmann, PE. Kappelmann is the principal energy and environmental policy consultant with RLK Associates. Prior to entering the consulting field, he served as Director of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs at JEA (Formally the Jacksonville Electric Authority). He has assisted clients in understanding the economic impacts of new energy and environmental legislative and regulatory initiatives on their utility operations.
Kappelmann received a Bachelor of Science degree from Stetson University, completed undergraduate requirements in Chemical and Civil engineering and received a Masters degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Florida. His graduate research area was in Atmospheric Photochemistry.
Kappelmann is a registered professional engineer in the state of Florida. He is married and has two children (see Complete Biography).
You won’t want to miss this fascinating discussion about dangers of the “green” agenda. Part one of this five-part interview begins this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, August 22-23, on WJRB 95.1 FM and streamed live over the Internet. Part two airs Saturday and Sunday, August 29-30, part three airs Saturday and Sunday, September 5-6, part four airs Saturday and Sunday, September 12-13, and part five airs Saturday and Sunday, September 19-20. All programs are available by podcast following air time here.
Climate change caused by man is NOT settled science, it’s a settle lie and it’s only being pushed for control of the people and padding deep pockets like al gore’s and God only knows who else! The temps have raised on Mars too, what caused that? The SUV driving aliens???? The temps here on earth have not raised more than a degree or 2 in the last couple of centuries. It gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter because it’s called weather and it’s been happening since the beginning of time. Stop pushing lies and spreading fear, you look and sound like a fool!
Kerry
An additional problem with some of these assumptions is that the data on temperature over the last 130 years is accurately represented and not manipulated. A good resource for evidence of data manipulation is Tony Heller at realclimatescience.com. He has proven that NASA and NOAA have manipulated data (also known as scientific fraud) to change or exclude temperature spike recordings from the 1930’s and 1940’s which show higher temperature readings that not only interrupt the “constant warming” claim, but remain as hotter temperatures than have been experienced recently. It’s actually a more cyclical than constant variation.
Thanks for your work to educate America.