The Climate Change Skeptics v. Al Gore


Al Gore has strong views about global warming and humanity's irresponsible behavior as a contributing factor. He is convinced, along with large sections of America and the world, that the CO2 emissions from factories and SUVs and so forth have been causing a global warming trend that is heading the earth in a very dangerous direction.
America has stepped up on its environmental stewardship quite a bit since the mid-1900's, but I won't say that humanity has been overly responsible when it comes to the environment. Despite our many failures, however, there are still quite a few climate experts - scientists who study climate as a profession - who disagree with Al Gore and his position on global warming.
Canada Free Press has recently posted an article that gives voice to the many climatologists who disagree with popular global warming views and give another perspective:
Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"
Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth's temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.
Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes apart Gore's dramatic display of Antarctic glaciers collapsing into the sea. "The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says Winterhalter. "In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form."
The article argues that these scientists are not unique in their field, but that there are, "hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change."
This is a big issue. If global warming is real, that should affect our decisions on how to control CO2 emissions, with huge implications for our businesses and for our dealings with other countries - like China and India - who contribute greatly to the problem. If it isn't real, that affects our decisions as well.
Either way, we want to breathe clean air and drink clean water, and we know how that affects us even without the help of climate experts.