Written 2005-07-20
Those of you who’ve been reading my notes for a long time know that I’ve been a Global Warming Skeptic from the get-go. I can still remember in the mid-to-late ’70’s when scientists were saying we were about to enter a new Ice Age.
A “computer model” is a tool used to make predictions (the model’s output) about the future based on a set of conditions (the inputs) imposed upon it. The computer models used by warming theorists are badly flawed. As with any computer model, one should be able to input historical conditions leading up to the present and the model should predict present conditions. The warming theorist’s model has historically been way off, in some cases predicting the opposite of what has actually occurred in terms of global climate.
There’s a paper from the Competitive Enterprise Institute titled “What Every European Should Know About Global Warming” and it’s a good read for us Americans too. There’s a link on the right to ‘View PDF’
One point which I hope is not lost on anyone is that, as is often the case where government tries to protect us from ourselves, the proposed cure is worse than the disease. Some examples: More people are harmed by the War On Drugs than are ever harmed by recreational drug use; the effort to reduce crime through restrictive gun control has only served to increase crime by leaving people unarmed and defenseless against the criminal element.
In the case of global warming, the same is true. The proposed fix will harm many more people, including causing more deaths, than the effects of warming itself. Mankind is responsible for only a small fraction of the warming we’re experiencing. Most of the current global climate change is cyclic in nature and naturally occurring. At this time, we don’t even know that the effects of warming are more harmful than beneficial. Until the computer model can be fixed, the best thing to do is simply observe and collect data. It’s waaayy too soon to begin correcting anything except the computer model.