CLIMATE: Agendas galore
A few years ago a friend suggested I take a look at what was going on in the climate community. I’m basically a hardcore Scientific Approach physicist. My professional life has been in university teaching, basic and applied research (Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, CA), and finally in Washington, responsible for the funding and management of various defense programs.
When I looked at the climate mess, what I saw was most amazing. It’s a perfect storm caused by very large amounts of (government) funding being available, a desire for power by groups (e.g., the UN), the actions of well meaning individuals who wish to steer society in certain directions, and an opportunity for personal gain. Al Gore comes to mind. The labeling and treatment of professional “doubters” has been appalling. There’s lots of literature out there, but probably the best, if you still are in doubt about the devious and dishonest actions of folks like Michael Mann of hockey stick fame (I’m sure no relationship to our Randy Mann) I suggest you read through the Climategate e-mails. These leave no doubt about the dishonesty of the initial warming proponents. The emails resulted in the end of a number of careers. Even my own professional society, the American Physical Society, has seen reason to drink the Kool-aid, with the result that a number of prominent physicists resigned from membership after their objections were ignored.
As far as the physics of the CO2 caused greenhouse effect, while it’s a complicated (and a physically very interesting) effect, it’s likely that the warming effect (yes there is some) has pretty well saturated at the current CO2 level. Once you paint the window black, another coat of paint won’t make it any blacker. On the positive side, satellite measurements show a substantial increase in plant growth over the last 25 years. After all, EVERYTHING green out there is the result of good old mother nature extracting carbon from this remarkable trace gas.
Again, thank you Randy!
PAUL TEMPLE, PhD
Post Falls