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For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed
as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the
problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created
political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official
temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East
Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global
average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease,
though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this
eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's
continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere.
In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will
chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short
period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that
the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998
constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also
pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming
occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world
industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at
precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest
rate.
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Does something not strike you as odd here? That industrial carbon
dioxide is not the primary cause of earth's recent decadal-scale
temperature changes doesn't seem at all odd to many thousands of
independent scientists. They have long appreciated - ever since the early
1990s, when the global warming bandwagon first started to roll behind the
gravy train of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -
that such short-term climate fluctuations are chiefly of natural origin.
Yet the public appears to be largely convinced otherwise. How is this
possible?
Since the early 1990s, the columns of many leading
newspapers and magazines, worldwide, have carried an increasing stream of
alarmist letters and articles on hypothetical, human-caused climate change.
Each such alarmist article is larded with words such as "if",
"might", "could", "probably",
"perhaps", "expected", "projected" or
"modelled" - and many involve such deep dreaming, or ignorance of
scientific facts and principles, that they are akin to nonsense.
The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but
rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been
inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike. Governments
generally choose not to receive policy advice on climate from independent
scientists. Rather, they seek guidance from their own self-interested
science bureaucracies and senior advisers, or from the IPCC itself. No
matter how accurate it may be, cautious and politically non-correct science
advice is not welcomed in Westminster,
and nor is it widely reported.
Marketed under the imprimatur of the IPCC, the
bladder-trembling and now infamous hockey-stick diagram that shows
accelerating warming during the 20th century - a statistical construct by
scientist Michael Mann and co-workers from mostly tree ring records - has
been a seminal image of the climate scaremongering campaign. Thanks to the
work of a Canadian statistician, Stephen McIntyre, and others, this graph
is now known to be deeply flawed.
There are other reasons, too, why the public hears so
little in detail from those scientists who approach climate change issues
rationally, the so-called climate sceptics. Most are to do with
intimidation against speaking out, which operates intensely on several
parallel fronts.
First, most government scientists are gagged from making
public comment on contentious issues, their employing organisations instead
making use of public relations experts to craft carefully tailored,
frisbee-science press releases. Second, scientists are under intense
pressure to conform with the prevailing paradigm of climate alarmism if
they wish to receive funding for their research. Third, members of the
Establishment have spoken declamatory words on the issue, and the kingdom's
subjects are expected to listen.
On the alarmist campaign trail, the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David
King, is thus reported as saying that global warming is so bad that Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable
continent by the end of this century. Warming devotee and former Chairman
of Shell, Lord [Ron] Oxburgh, reportedly agrees with another rash statement
of King's, that climate change is a bigger threat than terrorism. And
goodly Archbishop Rowan Williams, who self-evidently understands little
about the science, has warned of "millions, billions" of deaths
as a result of global warming and threatened Mr Blair with the wrath of the
climate God unless he acts. By betraying the public's trust in their
positions of influence, so do the great and good become the small and
silly.
Two simple graphs provide needed context, and exemplify the
dynamic, fluctuating nature of climate change. The first is a temperature
curve for the last six million years, which shows a three-million year
period when it was several degrees warmer than today, followed by a
three-million year cooling trend which was accompanied by an increase in
the magnitude of the pervasive, higher frequency, cold and warm climate
cycles. During the last three such warm (interglacial) periods,
temperatures at high latitudes were as much as 5 degrees warmer than
today's. The second graph shows the average global temperature over the
last eight years, which has proved to be a period of stasis.
The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally
all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable
shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which
remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed
during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But
for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has
been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the
climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared,
and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th
century phase of gentle warming.
The British Government urgently needs to recast the sources
from which it draws its climate advice. The shrill alarmism of its public
advisers, and the often eco-fundamentalist policy initiatives that bubble
up from the depths of the Civil Service, have all long since been detached
from science reality. Intern-ationally, the IPCC is a deeply flawed
organisation, as acknowledged in a recent House of Lords report, and the
Kyoto Protocol has proved a costly flop. Clearly, the wrong horses have
been backed.
As mooted recently by Tony Blair, perhaps the time has come
for Britain
to join instead the new Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and
Climate (AP6), whose six member countries are committed to the development
of new technologies to improve environmental outcomes. There, at least, some
real solutions are likely to emerge for improving energy efficiency and
reducing pollution.
Informal discussions have already begun about a new AP6
audit body, designed to vet rigorously the science advice that the
Partnership receives, including from the IPCC. Can Britain
afford not to be there?
• Prof Bob Carter is a geologist at James Cook University, Queensland,
engaged in paleoclimate research
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