Anthropogenic Global Warming: All Hot Air

JANUARY 17, 2004
By GREGORY J. RUMMO

     A WEEK AGO on Saturday morning as the northeast was in the grip of a frigid mass of Arctic air; my way cool weather station cheerfully announced that is was precisely 4.3 degrees below zero at 7:00 AM. I can say this with the utmost confidence because the weather station has a temperature probe located outside the house in a shady location. It sends a signal to the main base in my bedroom on the headboard above my head. It also features a clock that is constantly updated by a radio transmission from the atomic clock located in Fort Collins, Colorado.

            Today’s technology is capable of accomplishing many extraordinary feats. But one thing we will never be able to achieve is controlling the weather—a natural segue into one of my favorite topics—global warming.

            Earlier this winter as the snow base disappeared on Mountain Creek’s slopes in the warm, spring-like 60-degree temperatures the week after Christmas, I was reminded how nice it would be if there really were a little bit of global warming going on here in the Northeast.

            I almost broke out the Coppertone, especially during a ride home from work one afternoon when it was balmy enough to drive with the top down in my convertible.

            I could learn to love a mild December through February here in New Jersey with no persuasion from anyone. 

            But that’s not about to happen—ever.

            Last week, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone talking about global warming. They were all too busy trying to thaw out somewhere.

            Global warming continues to be nothing more than apocalyptic-scale fear mongering by a bunch of disgruntled, Chicken Littles. These are the same people who protested the US’s war in Iraq, comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler and who lead violent street protests, destroying American icons such as Starbucks and McDonald’s during G-8 economic summits in Italy and Washington State.   

            They are motivated by an avowed hatred of the twin pillars of democracy and capitalism. Their cause is unfortunately often aided and abetted by a mostly complicit media that doesn’t understand the difference between science and junk science.  

            The raison d’etre of the alarmists is to blame this alleged warming of the earth on anthropogenic CO2 emissions (i.e. “human activity,” the favorite target being SUV owners).

            Fortunately, not everyone in the scientific community is so easily swayed by politics or hatred.

            Take for example the editors of CO2-Science Magazine, a publication which I frequently read. You can find it online at CO2Science.Org.

            They are opposed to the IPCC—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—for its “predetermined position that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been responsible for the lion's share of the past half-century's purported global warming.”

            The editors also point out that they cannot “condone the strident political lobbying of IPCC-inspired climate alarmists, which is designed to promote massive mandatory reductions in the use of fossil fuel-derived energy to supposedly rectify this illusory situation.”

            The January 2004 issue featured several interesting tidbits and longer articles.

            The “Temperature Record of the Week” came from Batesville, Mississippi. The writers reported, tongue in cheek: “During the period of most significant greenhouse gas buildup over the past century, i.e., 1930 and onward, Batesville's mean annual temperature has cooled by 1.06 degrees Fahrenheit.  Not much global warming here!”

            There were also two lengthy papers: “Little Ice Age,” in which evidence is presented to disprove the claims of the “climate alarmists” that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age in South America were localized in regions about the North Atlantic Ocean and “Roots—Trees, Deciduous,” where the effects of warmer temperatures and higher  concentrations of carbon dioxide on tree roots “will likely help earth's woody plants to become ever more robust and productive as atmospheric CO2 concentrations rise higher and higher.”

            Speaking of global warming, it’s now warmed up to 12.6 degrees (above zero) at 3:18 PM—the official high for the day—at least in our backyard. That’s an increase of almost 17 degrees since I started this column a little over 10 hours ago. On a percentage basis, it’s an enormous change.

            But frankly, I’d still dig some of that global warming right now. Too bad it’s all just a bunch of hot air.  n

Gregory J. Rummo is a syndicated columnist. Read all of his columns on his homepage, www.GregRummo.com. E-Mail Rummo at  [email protected]