First, how can we be so foolish to think that man can significantly alter the earth in just a few years when it took millions of years to reach its current point.  Plus, Global Warming loonies seem to always forget the earth’s constantly changing state.  I’m going to borrow a little from a presentation I attended earlier this year, plus I will add in my two cents.  I will cite at the end in case you want to look into more things yourself.

The earth has been warming and cooling in stages since the beginning of time (or at least during the last 4.5 Billion years).  These cycles are caused by a number of different things including the sun, changes in atmospheric gases and the volcanic activity of the earth as it continues to change. 

The truth is that this isn’t even the hottest period in the earth’s history.  Roughly 4000 - 7500 years ago, there was a period known as the Holocene Maximum where average temperatures where roughly 1-2 degrees (celcius) warmer cite.  Going back further in history (much further) temperatures during the pliocene, miocene, eocene and cretaceous period were dramatically warmer with the cretacaceous period having temperatures nearly 10 degrees celcius warmer.  Now I understand that this may be comparing apples to oranges because of the significant differences in the earth’s makeup; however, that is the point - things change.  It is careless to look at periods of 50 years and classify them as scientific analysis. 

Plant evidence taken near the poles show that even the artic regions were warmer in the past.  “Near the poles, conifer and deciduous plant fossils discovered suggest the winter temperatures were not as low as they are today” (cite).  We don’t know if we are in an extended period of warming, or in just another cycle.  It could represent a minimal cycle or outlier where temperatures are abnormal for only a short period of time like during the Roman Climate-Optimum or the Medieval warm periods of the last 2000 years.  In fact, the average temperature in Europe during the year 2000 was still nearly 10 degrees celcius cooler than the average temperatures during the 13th century.  Finally, measurement techniques have changed as well.  Since 1902, we have used thermometer temperatures while evidence collected for previous years was taken from trees and ice core data.  Now, I won’t say I have the most calibrated thermometers; however, the one I have in the rear of my house (in the shade) and the one on the side of my house (in the shade) always are off by 1-2 degrees farenheit (both are away from heat sources like air conditioners, cars or dryer vents).  If I took a tree sample out of one of my trees out back (or had someone who knows what they are doing) it would definitely disagree with both of them. 

Plus, is it really Global Warming.  Because the increases in temperature only seem to be in the Northern Hemisphere.  Shouldn’t it be uniform across the world.  Temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere are actually .5 degrees celcius cooler than they were 20 years ago.  The winters seem to be colder and last longer as is evidenced in this years never ending winter in South America (remember my post a few days ago). 

Now on the topic of Carbon Dioxide increases, Gore will lead you to believe that the increases began a few years back with industry and cars.  Well according to data taken from the Vostok Ice Core, CO2 concentrations were actually close to 100 ppmv higher 2000 years ago than they are today (maybe it was all of the fireplaces used during the time of our Lord).  He is right about CO2 concentrations increases though.  They have been slowly increasing for nearly 20,000 years; although, that just brings us up to the “previous interglacial cycles of 120,000 - 140,000 years ago known as the Eemian Interglacial Period (cite).” That period ended with an Ice Age = maybe I need a thicker coat.

Finally, the truth is that CO2 levels today are not even as high as they were during the last 200 years.  In 1820, 1840 and 1860 the CO2 levels were above 500ppm.  An interesting fact is that these are periods that followed significant earth tetonic and atmospheric activity.  In 1811 and 1812 there was a rash of activity in the U.S including the New Madrid quakes (which altered the course of the Mississippi River) and nearly 1800 other earthquakes in the Central and Eastern U.S.  The hurricane season was also extremely active during this decade and there was even a hessian fly invasion (not that this has anything to do with Global Warming).  The year 1840 saw significant activity on Mt. Baker along with numerous other volcanoes throughout the world and in 1860 there was a significant volcanic event on Mt. Hood.  Not that we have had any significant volcanic activity in the last 30 years.  Does anyone remember Mount St. Helens?  Or more recently, there was Mount Pinatubo which produced an estimated 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide.  In fact, there is a great article found here about the impacts of that volcano.  Impacts to the ozone, sea surface temperatures, CFC productions and an increase of almost 4 degrees celcius in the lower subtropical stratosphere.  Not only that, while CO2 represents 99.438% of the Greenhouse gases (excluding water vapor) it only represents .117% of the total contribution to Greenhouse effect when water vapor is introduced.

So as we worry about the falling skies, we are making decisions that may have disastrous impacts.  We will discuss these in future postings.

Feel free to comment as you would like; however, if you are going to dispute anything I have listed then please include your source data so I can tear it apart

Works cited. 

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/slides/slideset/
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/Wirth_10-97_Our_global_future.html
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/LIND0710.html
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
http://www.stopdumbingdown.com/index_files/Page496.htm
http://www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/winter96/geoclimate.html
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Historical.html

and a few other sources that I don’t want to spend the time looking up tonight.

Also, there is a good top 10 myths about global warming found here.