Posted Feb. 5, 2016 at 7:19 PM
Updated Feb 5, 2016 at 7:22 PM
As the years roll by and Mother Nature wreaks havoc on the theory of global warming, the computer models may need to be retooled.
It has now been nearly 19 years (1997-2016) with no noticeable change in the Earth’s temperature, even though carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during that period have risen dramatically. Could that be the reason global warming experts and their disciples have redefined their science as “climate change?” If so, they are on much more stable ground. The Earth’s climate has been changing since the beginning of recorded time.
Yet our president says global warming is incontrovertible, the “one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other.” Secretary of State John Kerry says it’s as big a danger as Islamic terrorism.
For those of you who find yourself bewildered by conflicting reports, the scientific theory of global warming is not difficult to understand. The theory rests on two undisputed facts: One, burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) increases the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere; and two, temperatures have during extended warm and cold periods risen on average approximately 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 100 years. The belief is that the Earth’s temperature rise is due primarily to the increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere resulting from human burning of fossil fuels.
So how do the global warming apologists explain the massive amounts of CO2 making their way into the atmosphere with no discernible change of late in the Earth’s temperature? Some have concluded the past 19 years represent a “pause,” others a “hiatus,” and still others have retreated to the fail-safe position of “climate change.”
Global warming crusaders like to ridicule those who compare the computer projections on which the dire predicted consequences of global warming are based with the actual data — 19 years of Mother Nature’s rebuttal. The skeptics do not deny the Earth has warmed over the past 100 years (as if this is a bad thing). They question to what extent the warming is due to human causes and not the natural cycles of Mother Nature shaped by sun and sea.
It might come as a surprise to some that CO2 makes up a very small percentage of the gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. The global warming controversy makes it sound as though CO2 is a pollutant when in fact it is the gas of life, the one essential ingredient for all living plants. If it were eliminated from the atmosphere, we would all die, and long before global warming gets us.
So tip your hat to Mother Nature. She is looking out for all of us.
John Bernardi is an attorney and former public defender in Tazewell County. Previously a resident of Pekin, he now lives in Galena.