I live in the Mid-Atlantic. Since December 19, 2009, we have received almost 6 feet of snow. We set records for snowfall this year. I am asking God to move me back South as a result.
I admit that I’m not a climatologist. But I am a scientist. I read scientific literature. My doctoral dissertation integrated emerging brain research and theology. I have a computer science degree and spent 6 years in the IT industry. All this intrigues me.
Climate change is a difficult subject, and a contentious one. It’s a charged debate with people on the left and right politically and socially at each other’s throat. With the winter storms that have roared through this year, and with the Cap and Trade bill before Congress and being pushed through by the White House, the debate has only grown louder and more angry, if that is possible.
This week, both sides of the debate politically have gone after each other in the media. Those on the right are considering putting out an amber alert for Al Gore because he has been silent with all this snow and with ClimateGate. They have made fun of the former Vice President and those on the Left because global warming couldn’t be happening with all this snow. The Left has now fired back saying that all this snow is actually evidence of global warming. Just this week, MSNBC anchors and Fox News anchors have lobbed shots at each other over this.
Here is a sampling of video clips of this week’s action. First, Rachael Maddow interviews the lovable Bill Nye, the Science Guy. Nye appeared on MSNBC’s Feb. 10 “Rachel Maddow Show” and aired his disapproval of manmade climate change skeptics and labeled them “unpatriotic.”
MSNBC Anchor Dylan Ratigan got into the act, stating: ‘Snowpocalypses’ that have been going through D.C. and other weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing, and anticipating because of global warming … In fact you could argue these storms are not evidence of a lack of global warming, but evidence of global warming.” That clip is here.
Glenn Beck responds to this clip on the radio and on his Fox News program. The transcript of what he said on the radio program can be found here.
Not to be out done, Ratigan responds to Beck with what appears to be scientific evidence. Note that clip here:
The IPCC report that Bill Nye notes received a Nobel Prize for their work has been exposed by ClimateGate. The IPCC has had to announce this week that errors were made. Britian has called for an inquiry. India has pulled out because of the manipulation of the data. And despite some claiming the science is settled, it certainly doesn’t appear to be.
I know two things. First, in 2002, I participated in a doctoral class where one of my colleague worked for an environmental group. She was, herself, an environmentalist. During part of her research, however, she came to the conclusion that the environmental movement had little to do with the environment and more to do with the money. In fact, it was primarily a money movement.
Second, the science that Ratigan & Nye use to validate their claim that global warming is the cause of the record snow falls, has recently been proven incorrect. A recent study by Susan Solomon,Karen Rosenlof,Robert Portmann,John Daniel,Sean Davis, Todd Sanford, and Gian-Kasper Plattner, published in the journal Science, states:
Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000. Here, we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000 to 2009 by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. More limited data suggest that stratospheric water vapor probably increased between 1980 and 2000, which would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% compared to estimates neglecting this change.
This article was generated by scientists with the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in Colorado and the Physics Institute in Bern, Switzerland. These are hardly groups associated with any high level of climate change skepticism.
If the water vapor concentrations were increasing, with more water in the atmosphere there could be more rain and snow, depending on the temperature. However, water is decreasing; therefore there should be reduced rain and reduced snow falls. That is just not happening.
Another article was published in Geophysical Research Letters by two scientists with the National Climatic Data Center in North Carolina and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. The article is entitled “Is the climate warming or cooling?” Easterling and Wehner basically show that with little-to-no external forcing of global climate, we will still get decades of warming and cooling. They note that no real cause is needed to produce a decade of cooling – it is all just part of the natural variability of climate.
Has there been a trend towards an increase in temperature? Since 1975, yes there has. It is, however, now trending downward.
As a Christian, I believe it is important to be good stewards of creation. I want to be off the grid (except for internet) in 10 years, using solar, wind, and geo-thermal energies and the grid as back-up power only. At the same time, I also believe in the sovereignty of God and in that I believe that God can take care of this planet without my help or my harm. So while I support environmentalism to a point, I also reject the rabid environmentalists trying to cap and tax (trade) and destroy economies and jobs.
Q4U:
1. Will extreme environmentalism hurt our economies? If so, how?
2. What are you doing to be more aware environmentally, and a better steward of the earth’s resources?
