(Happy Summer Solstice everyone!)
When arguing with man-made global warming climate change believers, there are (at least) two challenges to deal with.
The first challenge is debunking myths that have been driven into people’s minds. We “deniers” have the burden of convincing others, for example, that the precious computer models are flawed; that the hottest years on record have not been in the late 20th-early 21st century; that neither the frequency nor intensity of weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts, are not higher than “normal”; that skeptics or deniers are not sparse, in bed with Big Oil, or anti-science fringe wackos; and even that humankind’s fossil fuel emissions—accounting for a fraction of a fraction of total greenhouse gases—is making such a serious dent in the climate to begin with.
It is unfair for the denier to have to refute climate myths, because ample documentable evidence is readily available. In a sane world, it would be the climate alarmist that should bear the burden of proving its catastrophic man-made global warming climate change theory. Unfortunately, this movement is so moneyed and powerful and adept at plucking the heartstrings of a generally uneducated public, that they propogate these myths with impunity. The strategies used to suppress and delegitimize all opposition is also very effective and coordinated, be it by politicians, news media, or Hollywood.
But another, even more challenging task for the “denier” is explaining why a natural phenomen that suggests evidence of man-made global warming climate change is not due to climate change at all. A prime example is Mt. Kilimanjaro.
In Al Gore’s shamelessly lie- and error-ridden book, he breathlessly declared that “Mt. Kilimanjaro’s snow pack is melting due to greenhouse gasses.” He was clearly echoing the sentiment of the watermelons at Greenpeace who in 2001 claimed that the mountain “could lose its entire ice field by 2015” if climate change goes unchecked. (Note the qualifier “could”? How scientific.)
For one thing, both Nature in 2003 and Reuters—not your archtypical right-wing rag— in 2007 reported that the melting of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers can be attributed to deforestation, not climate change. Secondly, as Floy Lilley, a faculty member at the libertarian Mises Institute, explains:
By the time Ernest Hemingway wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro in 1936, half of the snow was already gone. This is before man began releasing CO2 into the atmosphere to any extent by burning fuels for energy. No temperature on the mountain is above freezing. There has been no temperature change in fifty-five years. Shrinking is likely to be a circulation issue and lower precipitation, not a rising temperature issue.
In sum: True, the glacier at the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro might be receding, but it’s not an indicator of global warming climate change, man-made or otherwise.
But don’t tell that to Oscar-winning, Nobel “Peace” Prize-winning, mega-mansion-owning Al Gore or any of his fellow travelers of climate hysterics.
Another example appears in the Science section of today’s U.K. Daily Mail: A part of Antarctic glacier is receding, but evidently not due to global warming climate change:
Antarctic glacier melting due to hidden ice ridge (rather than climate change)
By NIALL FIRTH
21st June 2010An underwater ridge could explain why a major glacier in the Antarctic is melting more quickly than ever before, according to a new study.
Scientists used a robot submarine to make a 3D map of the ocean under the ice shelf at the end of the Pine Island Glacier in western Antarctica.
They discovered that the ice was no longer resting on a subsea ridge that had slowed the glacier’s slide until the early 1970s.
The discovery means that the glacier’s more rapid melting in recent years could be due to the flow of warmer sea water beneath it rather than climate change, as had previously been believed. …
Believe me, you will probably not see this story in mainstream U.S. papers. Antarctica is particularly a pet of the climate-hysterical Left. Just like with Mt. Kilimanjaro, all you need to know is that it’s due to American capitalistic greed in the form of human fossil fuel emissions. Facts and reporting need—nay, must—not enter the discussion.
The debate is over. The science is settled.
How do we know? Because Al Gore told us so.
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