I had decided to retire from writing in this forum, but after thinking about Waldorf and Sauron’s answer to this question I thought I should say something.Waldorf and Sauron wrote: Global warming, definitely; not just because it's happening, but because so many people deny it. The skepticism of global warming is manufactured by the media, and flies in the face of the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is definitely happening, and likely caused by humans. Not a single scientific organization dissents. If our country continues to trust *partisan mumble* more than scientists, we're truly screwed.
Nuclear war is also pretty likely, in my book.
Love,
Waldorf and Sauron
I suppose their comment is typical of many people in the world who get their news from the mainstream media, so I can’t blame them. I believe that the skepticism of global warming comes from the scientists; those pushing the belief in global warming are people who profit by the scare, and they are assisted by the willing support of the media.
Let me tell you where I am coming from. I am a scientist with a Ph.D. in optical sciences, and I know something about the subject. Part of my research has been with light propagation through the atmosphere. I work with other government scientists, engineers, and meteorologists, none of whom believe global warming is caused by man, if indeed it really exists, and they believe there is more evidence against its existence than for it.
Some time ago I got a little tired of the constant editorials written by a non-technical person in a popular national technical industry magazine. She frequently wrote about global warming as though it were really happening, and it was going to be a man-made catastrophe. At that time the magazine ran an opinion poll every other month. So I emailed the magazine and suggested they poll the scientists and engineers about what they really thought about global warming. I gave the magazine ten questions to use based on editorials they had run. They modified my questions, making them more biased toward the magazine’s point of view. They were overwhelmed with the largest response they had ever had to one of their polls. And despite the magazine’s bias the results were overwhelming in opposition to the belief that global warming is real, and if real, they rejected the notion that it is a man made problem.
I wish I could say that the magazine changed its tune. What actually happened was that they discontinued the use of the polls, and continued the use of global warming scare editorials.
I was once hired by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to analyze the results of their atmospheric computer model. They had spent millions of dollars obtaining data for the model and developing the model. After a couple of months it became apparent to me that the model was predicting dire pollution consequences based on biased input data. Only studies that could be expected to show that the air quality would get worse without EPA intervention had been funded and used as input. Anything that might make the EPA look like it was not serving a useful purpose was not funded and was therefore speculation and not part of the model.
Because their computer output showed the EPA what they wanted to hear, that our country really needed the EPA, my bosses were pleased with my analysis. They actually spent only a few seconds looking at the charts, which seemed to reaffirm their preconceived notions, before stating their opinions of what it all meant. My remarks about the bias in the data fell on deaf ears. That was the last time I worked for EPA.
So, forgive me if my skepticism of global warming offends you. I say as a scientist, and for the scientists I know, we are skeptical of global warming. We believe that global warming is a myth pushed on a trusting public by the “partisan mumble†of the mainstream media, opportunistic politicians like Al Gore, and a few politicized scientists who stand to gain financially from the manufactured scare.
And it looks like our country is screwed because so many continue to trust the “partisan mumble†that global warming is real and manmade, rather than trust the real scientists.