After years of suffering through the writings of global warming cultists I keep hoping that the overwhelming contradictory scientific evidence and thorough debunking of anthropogenic global warming alarmism would result in scientific truth and the scientific method winning out soon. I was certainly wrong in that belief. Once again a global warming diatribe by self-appointed expert, Jeffrey Bada, has proven conclusively the prophetic words (written by William M. Briggs, PhD):
“How long does it take for an expert who has, year upon year after year, made predictions of unrealized doom, an expert hailed heeded and hearkened to by the whole world, to admit error? Answer: forever. He never will, and neither will most of his admirers.”
This is important to understand – let this sink into your bones – because this sad but true fact about the human condition tells us how long global warming will be with us. Answer: forever. It will last until the last of its proponents die. Which, given improvements in medical practice, will be at least several more decades.
No one said this pithier than Nobel physicist Max Planck: Science advances one funeral at a time. The increased and increasing longevity of our species thus partly accounts for the deceleration in scientific knowledge which many have remarked.”
Mr. Bada invokes the questionable college polls sponsored by Stanford and University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire which are meaningless regarding the intelligent population at large. He then asserts an unsubstantiated unanimity among climate scientists about global warming and references a survey by geologist James Powell that concludes that only 30 or less climate related papers (out of over 24,000 reviewed) actually rejected global warming. In reality 100 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming and global cooling are continuously evidenced in all measured and proxy estimated global temperature records. The fundamental question is: Among the many possible causal agents for climate change, is man’s contribution a significant factor and is man-caused (anthropogenic) warming something to be concerned about and make efforts to mitigate its consequences for the Earth’s future?
Bada’s next paragraph irrecoverably proves his fundamental mendacity by making an extremely negative comment about the Heartland Institute. Anyone even slightly cognizant of the Heartland Institute’s reputation and accomplishments instantly recognizes that Bada knows absolutely nothing about it. A simple click on the “experts” link on the institute’s web site reveals an enormous wealth of scientific contributors (out of the over 400 experts listed.) Also check out the agenda, content, and participants at the Heartland sponsored 10th International Conference on Climate Change which recently concluded in Washington D.C. (Watch and listen to all presentations at: climateconference.heartland.org/)
Mr. Bada then refers to the “Hockey Stick” and “ClimateGate E-Mails” as meaningless “affairs.” The Hockey Stick graph introduced in 2001 in the IPCC’s 3rd Assessment Report was totally debunked by McIntyre and Mckitrick and subsequently removed from further assessment reports. Amazingly the graph got rid of the world wide occurrence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) (approximately 1000 AD) because temperatures then were higher than in our recent warm period (as proven by the human settling and agriculture in Greenland.) Also mysteriously deleted in the graph was the Little Ice Age (LIA) which was evidenced by many years of the Thames River freezing over in England and the miserable winter conditions experienced by George Washington and his army during the revolutionary war.
The next paragraph talks about increases in ppm concentrations of CO2 in the past 165 years. The “over 40 percent” number applies to the total 165 years from 1850 to 2015 and not to 57 years as stated in the article. Actually that 19th Century CO2 concentration of 275 ppm was based on a suspicious analysis of direct measurements made by G.S. Callendar (1938) that he made beginning in 1812. In that analysis Callendar cherry-picked only those measurements that averaged out to 275 ppm. A reintroduction of all of Callendar’s deleted measurements results in a pre-industrial CO2 concentration of 335 ppm.
In the following paragraph Bada discusses the relevancy of CO2 concentration increase but fails to mention the effects on humans and plants. NASA recommends that for missions of 1,000 days the concentration of CO2 should be less than 5,000 ppm. Green plants begin to die off at concentrations below 150 ppm but love levels in the 1,000 to 1,200 ppm. range (the range utilized in many commercial greenhouses for optimized growth of sellable plants.) With our current rate of concentration increase at approximately 2 ppm. per year, it will be 300 years before our concentration reaches that ideal concentration for green plants of 1,000 ppm.
A particularly anti-science discussion follows which talks about that CO2 “greenhouse effect” which purportedly results in runaway warming of the planet. In actuality both CO2 and water vapor have been proven to cause only cooling of the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide cannot absorb and preserve energy. The warmist’s idea of greenhouse gas warming defies both the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics. If the greenhouse effect were true then a natural temperature “hot spot” would occur in the troposphere over equatorial zones of the Earth. Extensive satellite and weather balloon temperature testing have conclusively proven that this “hot spot” does not exist. So the whole idea of anthropogenic global warming rests on the false concept of re-radiated infrared energy by CO2 molecules. A definitive source for information regarding the incorrectness of the global warming greenhouse theory can be found in the book, “Slaying the Sky Dragon – The Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory” by Tim Ball and John O’Sullivan.
Bada’s next paragraph falsely asserts that satellite data which now shows an 18 year, six month standstill in global temperatures should be ignored because a one year El Nino temperature anomaly occurred in 1998. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows no global warming for 18 years, six months since December 1996. He then apes the ridiculous claim that 2014 was the warmist year on record when a simple examination of the underlying data shows that 2014 was warmer by less than .1 degree C. and the huge ranges of uncertainty make all such warmer/warmist claims total nonsense. The Argo ocean buoy project results contradict Bada’s statement that ocean temperatures are increasing.
Since Mr. Bada’s credits indicate his association with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego it would seem appropriate that he review the history of that distinguished Scripps scientist Dr. Roger Revelle. As early as 1957 Dr. Revelle initiated studies on the possible effects of CO2 on global warming. While teaching at Harvard in the 1970’s Revelle unfortunately created a global warming “monster” by planting the seed in an impressionable unethical “D” student named Al Gore. By the late 1980’s Dr. Revelle had concluded that the connection between global warming and greenhouse gases was still extremely uncertain. In a 1991 Cosmos article “What To Do About Greenhouse Warming: Look Before You Leap” co-authored with S. Fred Singer the summarizing statement was “The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time.” This conclusion could not be more true than our current level of science in 2015 proves. In order to preclude the possibility of political notoriety Gore had a sufficiently unethical supporter launch a nasty attack on his former mentor and Dr. Singer by accusing Revelle of having become recently senile and Dr. Singer having lied about Revelle’s co-authorship. Dr. Revelle unfortunately died just 3 months after the article was published and could not defend himself; however Dr. Singer vindicated them both with a winning lawsuit for character defamation.
As Princeton physics professor Dr. William Happer (in his excellent July 2011 article, “The Truth About Greenhouse Gases”) lamented: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
