Global Warming and Bad Science

It’s been awhile since my last post as I moved to my northern residence for the summer months. Like millions of others I am seeking a buyer so that I can live permanently in southwest Florida. During this time I have had a chance to view the rather dynamic political scene, Obama’s trip to the mid-East and Europe, continuing negative developments in the economy, and the slowly eroding public approval of the President’s policies, although he personally retains high popularity ratings.

In the coming months we will have a lot to say about this administration’s attempt to pass national healthcare legislation, a Cap and Trade environmental tax, and at the same time run our auto industry; all this with the back drop of rising unemployment, a failed stimulus program, and rising deficits. I believe we would have a lot more unrest right now had the stock market not recovered all of its 2009 losses at this point.

To make matters worse, I read about another ridiculous global warming report issued by the global Humanitarian Forum, which is based in Geneva, and headed by former U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan. The report warns that unless countries agree to “the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated” at a meeting this year in Copenhagen, droughts and floods and natural disasters induced by climate change will kill 315,000 each year and cost $125 billion and it gets worse into the future. Actually, these numbers are not very ominous when one considers that malaria and AIDS kill an estimated 3 million people a year. It would seem that a focused worldwide effort using known technology to eradicate those dread diseases, would be far more cost-effective than trying to affect a multi-trillion dollar program to change the climate, which is controlled by God or other natural phenomena (depending on your religious beliefs).

The real questionable credibility of this report is its methodology, which assumes that global warming is the direct cause of climate change when no credible evidence exists other than theories and the political rhetoric of overzealous environmentalists. There is absolutely no evidence that can point to a relationship of greenhouse gas emissions and disasters. This report actually attributes Hurricane Katrina and suggests that the fighting in Somalia are products of climate change. Since the effects of climate change are long-term, it is disingenuous to attribute these recent events to change caused by global warming.

We have gotten to the point where claims such as those made in this report need to be scrutinized more carefully by credible scientists and their assessment needs to be published in the news media or otherwise we will continue to be flooded with this kind of self-serving phony science that dresses itself up when promoted by political advocates who see the money train of the green movement.

I’m afraid the Obama administration is falling into that trap as we continue to sit on the sidelines with known technology while we claim the goal of energy independence.