Global Warming: Fact or Fiction?

An editorial in the Orange County Register today states that the "consensus" on global warming is a fiction.

It points out that many scientists from prestigious institutions disagree strongly with the findings of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that increases in man-made greenhouse gases are causing global warming.

The skeptical scientists are experts in many fields: climatology, oceanography, geology, biology, environmental sciences, physics, and others. They are affiliated with institutions that inclured Harvard, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, MIT, the International Arctic Research Center, and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, among others. Their views are accumulated in a report from the U. S. Senate.

The consensus-refuting comments can be read at http://www.epw.senate.gov (click on U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-made Global Warming Claims in 2007). Some examples:

• Dr. Howard Hayden, University of Connecticut: "Climate history proves that Gore has the relationship between carbon dioxide concentration and global warming backward. A higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not cause the Earth to be warmer. Instead, a warmer Earth cause the higher carbon dioxide levels."
• Swedish geologist Dr. Bibjorn Karlen, professor emeritus at Stockholm University: "...As far as I can see the IPCC 'Global Temperature' is wrong. Temperature is fluctuating, but it is still most places cooler than in the 1930's and 1940's...it will take about 800 years before the water level has increased by one meter."

The OC Register is correct--there is no consensus! Some scientists disagree over the extent, if any of the warming trend. Others see correlation between increases in CO2 concentration and Earth temperature increases, but disagree on which is the cause and which is the effect.

So which group of scientists should we believe? I maintain that it does not matter all that much, because there are less complex issues on which it is easier to reach consensus. We can probably agree that the continuing and increasing use of fossil fuels will result in both the eventual depletion of the resources and an unacceptable pollution of our atmosphere. Their continued use threatens the viability of our civilization. Irrespective of the hullabaloo about global warming, it makes sense to reduce both our total energy consumption and our dependence upon fossil fuels.

Whatever actions we take, however, must be based on thorough mathematics and sound scientific principles. We must accurately assess both the energy cost of producing a product and the pollution created upon use or disposal of the product when we consider replacing that product with another. Those characteristics are easier to predict and to quantify for some specific products than is the more complicated processes of global climate change.