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Global Warming, Politics, Control


Has global warming (or AGW, or global climate change, or whatever name is popular this week) occurred in the past? Yes, without a doubt. Has global cooling occurred in the past? Yes, again, without a doubt. Are humans responsible for what has happened in the past? Since no fossils of cars or power plants have ever been found, the conclusion must be “No.” Are humans responsible for the current global warming? Well, it all depends on who you ask. This source says “yes.” This source says “no.”

The primary point here is that there are two separate questions to consider. (1): Has global warming/cooling occurred, and does it continue to occur? Of that, there is no argument. As Al Gore is wont to say, “A consensus has been reached.” (2): (and this is the heart of the global warming argument) Are humans causing what is currently occurring? Global warming advocates try, in my opinion formed from observations, to combine the two questions in an attempt to further their argument/cause. Global warming skeptics and nay-sayers do not examine the first question. Why should they? They examine what is currently happening (current being defined as in the last, say, 100 years – there were very few cars or coal-fired power plants 100 years ago) and are more and more reaching the conclusion that humans, regardless of what we do, cannot possibly overcome nature.

The politics of global warming is what most global warming advocates forward. The politics is entirely about control. For example, this source clearly explains the ultimate objective of global warming advocates: “… to justify demands for a more powerful government and that the government needs to assert more controls over energy production and consumption in order to stop the Earth from warming.” Further, the Copenhagen Accord of 2009 calls for:

“… developed nations to provide $30 billion to help developing nations deal with the effects of climate change from 2010 to 2012. By 2020, the text [the Copenhagen Accord] says rich nations ‘set a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion a year’ for poor nations. The text says the money will go to the ‘most vulnerable’ developing nations.”

Two questions. First, how is the US, although developed, considered rich? The US debt, the last time I looked, was over $16 trillion. Second, who do you think will pay the bulk of the $100 billion per year? I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

And this from Dr. William Tumminelli, lead author of a UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report: “We need to have strict international rules in place.” Do rules equate to control?

Now naked extortion is entering the picture. At the UN Global Warming conference being held in Doha, Qatar, the US delegation, in the name of preventing global warming, has allowed language supporting extortion. Does extortion equate to control?

So, global warming advocates try to cite what has happened in the past (without human help) as evidence that what humans are currently doing is ruining the atmosphere. That’s like comparing apples to oranges.

But, why bother? We may already be too late. Yet another IPCC report predicted in 2007 that, “… the warming-induced melting of the Greenland ice sheet could create significant sea-level rise in this century.” Key word here: “could.” Don’t you just love it when the IPCC unequivocally takes a stand? And, as this source clearly illustrates, mean sea level trends are both up and down. But how can that be? How could any downward trend occur? The infallible, always neutral, totally without a political agenda, IPCC said, in 2007, that sea levels could rise. The IPCC report said nothing about a sea level drop. Plus, the last time I checked, water always achieves the same level. Does this phenomenon not apply universally throughout the entire globe? Yes, the earth’s moon causes tides, but tidal effects are averaged out through the trend calculation process, so any trend differences should not occur.

And this source says, “For ice sheets – huge refrigerators that slow down the warming of the planet – the tipping point has probably already been passed. The West Antarctic ice sheet has shrunk over the last decade and the Greenland ice sheet has lost around 200 cubic km (48 cubic miles) a year since the 1990s.” Wow! that sounds pretty bad. But this source says that the ice in the Antarctic is actually growing. Kinda puts the Greenland ice sheet loss in perspective, as well, doesn’t it. Speaking of Greenland, this source says: (about Greenland)

“… a 12% or 86 Gigaton/yr increase in ice sheet accumulation rate from the end of the Little Ice Age in ~1840 to the last decade of the reconstruction. This 1840-1996 trend is 30% higher than that of 1600-2009, suggesting an accelerating accumulation rate.”

And this source says sea levels around the US are actually dropping.

This National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) source illustrates both rises and falls of sea levels. Can someone explain how Iceland, for example, in the North Atlantic Ocean, experienced a sea level rise, while, at the same time, Newfoundland and Labrador, also in the North Atlantic, experienced a sea level drop? Both locations are equidistant from Greenland.

So much for the IPCC’s global warming credibility. But nothing in the IPCC studies in any way alters its lack of political credibility.

Recent studies answer (or at least address) the second question. For example, this article says nothing about the first question above. More and more, climatologists and scientists are getting it, that the IPCC has a political agenda. The closest answer to the first question comes from research chemist William C. Gilbert, who, in 2010, published “The thermodynamic relationship between surface temperature and water vapor concentration in the troposphere” in Energy & Environment. Gilbert says:


Other comments by other scientists and climatologists quoted in this source provide some very interesting reading.

And this source documents what is currently happening. As Bob Tisdale’s graph shows, Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures have not risen (or have risen only slightly) since 1994. Is that recent enough for ya?

And here is yet another source that documents what is currently happening. As Tom Fuller says:

“Those who think that there isn’t much of an additional effect have been chuckling very publicly because temperatures haven’t risen very much (if at all) since the big El Nino year of 1998. But it is happening at an inconvenient time politically for those who are worried that sensitivity is high. They are trying to get the world to prepare for warming of 4.5C or higher, without much success.” That is, without the help of the MSM.

Be sure to check out Figure 4 in the article, which clearly indicates that the global mean temperature has not risen at all between 1998 and 2012.

So, examining only the second question shows that global warming is both a hoax and is not happening (at least not as fast as alarmists say). But a completely different picture emerges if the first question enters the picture, if a political agenda is pursued.

But that’s just my opinion.

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  • Dr Dreadful

    Warren, why you would think it astonishing or nefarious that the IPCC has a political agenda when its purpose is to advise governments on the science and implications of climate change?

    You’ll be telling me Obama wants to run the country next.

  • DSL

    Warren, what an amazing logician you are. Since the climate has changed in the past, and we weren’t around, we cannot be responsible for the current change. Hrmmm . . . this has a lot of applications. Let’s see, so if I was not around for all murders that occurred prior to today, I could murder today and not be responsible for it. Yes?

    Warren, is there any difference between a shovel used to beat someone over the head and the same shovel used to dig a garden? Has the shovel changed its physical qualities when it’s used for one purpose and then another?

    Can CO2 be both a feedback and a forcing?

    You want to be right more often? Read the actual science. Avoid the talking heads.

  • Maurice

    Warren I appreciate the thoughtfulness of this article. I am an electrical engineer and my best guess is you are an engineer or technical person also. Your writing reminds me of Michael Crichtons “State of Fear”. So like an engineer to put in links for both sides of an argument.