Against the grain: Global Warming

Against the grain: Some scientists deny global warming exists

Astrophysicist Nir Shariv, one of Israel's top young scientists, describes the logic that led him -- and most everyone else -- to conclude that SUVs, coal plants and other things man-made cause global warming.

Step One Scientists for decades have postulated that increases in carbon dioxide and other gases could lead to a greenhouse effect.

Step Two As if on cue, the temperature rose over the course of the 20th century while greenhouse gases proliferated due to human activities.

Step Three No other mechanism explains the warming. Without another candidate, greenhouses gases necessarily became the cause.

"As if on cue, the temperature rose over the course of the 20th century" ...
Fact: Global Temperature, on the whole, has been rising for the last 18,000 years.

18,000 years ago marked the end of the last ice age. Since that time the earth's temperature has been on the rise, as evidenced by rising sea levels.

Fact: Global warming scientists claim that "Man Made" global warming has existed for approximately 30 years.

Fact: The earth has been warming for 17,870 years without mankind's help.

Fact: The temperature over the 20'th century has not "risen on cue." From 1900 to about 1940, the earth's recorded surface temperatures rose approximately 1/2 a degree F. Then, from 1940-1980 the world's surface temperature dropped and raised back approximately 1/3 a degree F. From 1980 to 2000 the earth's surface temperature raised another 1/2 a degree F. So, all said, over the course of the 20th century, the world's surface temperature has raised a single degree F (over the course of 100 years). The increase was not a steady increase, in fact, from 1940 to 1970, the earth surface temperature was in a slow decline - prompting some scientists to warn of the pending ice age.

Fact: Scientists believe the earth has seen four ice ages. Between each ice age are periods known as Interglacials. During these times, the earth's temperatures rise (otherwise known as global warming). These events are naturally occurring. Each ice age ended without man's help. Man did nothing to create the global temperature changes that occured over the last several million years.

Fact: The "man made" global warming theory requires one to forget millions of years of history and subscribe to the notion that technology is the cause of global temperature change.

Fact: Scientists have a strong financial incentive to write "scientific" articles claiming man-man global warming is real.

Fact: Scientists who disagree with the idea that man is the cause of global warming are ridiculed, shunned, and find themselves blackballed from peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Fact: Global temperatures are rising (Scientists do agree on this universally); the global temperatures have been on the rise (on the whole) since the last ice age 18,000 years ago. The cause of the rising global temperatures over the past 18000 years are legitmiately disputed.

Fact: Science is not an exact... science. The top scientific thinkers once believed the earth was flat. When this was disproven, scientists still held to the belief that the Earth was the center of the galaxy and solar system. As human understanding evolves, beliefs one held nearly universally amongst scientists have evolved along with human understanding.

Before you buy into global warming, make sure you know the facts... they just might suprise you.