Global Warming?

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Cooling off: time to take a different look at global warming

By Patriot-News Op-Ed October 04, 2009
by Tom Russell - chief meteorologist at CBS Channel 21 in Harrisburg.

Hey, the weather is changing! Somehow, just in the last week or two, things have gotten rap­idly cooler. Oh wait, it’s called fall. Seems to happen every year around this time. Funny how weather seems to work in cycles.

We know we had a cooler and wet­ter than average summer. But did you know the June-August 2009 tempera­ture for the whole U.S. was below av­erage?

Yeah, despite the heat waves in the West and Southwest, the North­east had its eighth wettest June-to-August on record. Does this prove there is no global warming? Of course not, no more than melting ice caps prove it does exist.

Weather changes. It fluctuates minute by minute, hour by hour, weekly, yearly, by decade and by century. Those of us forecasting the stuff daily know what a fickle mistress Mother Nature can be.

So, when I see humans trying to blame weather cycles on something other than nature, I get incensed. I don’t know what’s more arrogant: Saying we caused it or saying we can stop it.

Truth is, we can’t keep a stray shower from ruining your picnic, so how are we going to stop global weather patterns?

Ironically, the same people who tease me about not getting the seven-day forecast correct totally believe in the faulty science that says we can predict the weather 100 years from now.

When this global warming debate comes up, I always start with the premise “What is the ideal global temperature?” We only have 120 years of accurate records to tell us what “normal” is. We’ve been warmer in the past and we’ve been cooler in the past.

In his book “Climate Confusion,” Dr. Roy Spencer says attributing most or all of the current warmth to mankind is a statement of faith, because it assumes something we don’t know: How much natural climate variability has there been during the same period of time? And then I continue with the basics. Despite what you’ve heard, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It’s kind of important to our survival. Research now shows that CO2 does not drive temperature but rather temperature drives CO2. Adding twice the CO2 does not double the effect. The initial tons of CO2 matter, but adding more has less and less effect. Imagine painting a window with black paint: The first coat does most of the work, the extra coats don’t matter much.

And even though I’m a big skeptic of anyone who says they can give you an accurate global temperature, satellite data show the world has not warmed since 2001, even though carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased.

The biggest change in this debate over the last 10 years isn’t temperature. It’s the change in the marketing from global warming to climate change. Climate change is a much better moniker, but for what? An agenda, of course.

So get ready, after the politicians put health care to bed, cap and trade is next up on the agenda. Imagine, making carbon a currency. That’s pretty ingenious, but it has nothing to do with the climate.

I watched Tom Russell on WITV's Smart Talk which motivated me to look up this thought provoking Op-Ed that he wrote last October.

Like just about everything else, "global warming" has become a political agenda. Corruption of data used to prove "global warming" has been discovered, and peer-reviewed studies (which are the backbone of TRUE scientific research) now contradict global warming alarmism.

I believe we should be good stewards of our environment. And I agree with the Native American proverb that "we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors but rather borrow it from our children."

But I believe we should procede with common sense and have come to the conclusion that "global warming" is a fraud - a fraud perpetrated by people with their own agendas.
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