The global warming debate is dominated by forces with political agendas, even on the international scale.  It has become  a political issue, not a scientific one.  The debate is badly muddled by the exaggerations of the media, Hollywood, and Al Gore, a man who would do anything for the environment---except take a science course.  There is little "science" in their "scientific" movies and articles.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been a major force in setting the political tone of the debate on the issue, and it is well-known that the UN is a hotbed of anti American sentiments. Despite the UN's biases and questionable performance in the realm of science, it has been aided, abetted, and misrepresented by the US media, Hollywood, state and federal elected officials, and many environmental organizations.

To raise hysteria over the coming global warming "catastrophe," the environmental Left uses the same template as it has in years past: manipulating public opinion, scaring uninformed laymen, and creating a movement to advance their political agenda.  Many issues concerning the environment deal with science, statistics, cause and effect, advanced mathematics, quantification, leaving a non-scientific frightened public extremely vulnerable to manipulation of science.  Yet pseudoscience is still not science.

For the politically active, twisting science has been extremely useful in promoting their destructive agendas for decades. For example, the world-wide ban on DDT led to the otherwise preventable deaths of millions of people. Historically, a three-step template has been used by the environmental movement to manipulate pubic opinion.  The first step is to identify a looming catastrophe; the second is to identify the cause; and the third is to propose a solution---usually by eliminating the targeted cause.

Fear, hysteria, and pseudoscience are essential in converting such issues into large movements and political action.  The media have proven particularly useful in frightening the masses. Despite being the only source of information for the majority of Americans, the media, largely untrained in hardball science, betrays the public repeatedly and remorselessly.

If one wants to know if the climate is warming ask for the temperature data. Don't bother with pictures of glaciers calving or of polar bears frolicking on ice bergs.  Don't watch movies of tidal waves roaring through downtown Manhattan.  Show me the T data, and lots of such data, from all around the world.

Consider some of the pillars of the global warming hypothesis. First, there was the "hockeystick," a graphic reconstruction by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the past 1000 years of global temperatures.  According to this chart, the global temperature trend was unchanged for 1000 years until the beginning of the twentieth-century when temperatures were shown increasing dramatically to the present day.  This chart was featured in the 2001 IPCC report entitled "Climate Change 2001 Third Annual Report" as a compelling and urgent sign that such a warming trend was ominous and needed to be reversed.  However, later analyses of the"hockeystick" chart showed that it was not a reproduction of actual temperature data for this period, but instead a computer reconstruction based on many varied sources, including proxies such as tree rings.  Despite being revealed to be seriously flawed in its data reconstruction (http://tinyurl.com/awwva), the "hockeystick" was a major statistical pillar of the IPCC Third Annual Report (TAR).  The report omitted the Little Age Warming centered around 1100 AD, as well as the Little Ice Age centered around 1550 and lasting until the 1800s.

According to insiders, the latest IPCC report won't be made public for several more months, and it will not include the hockeystick at all.  Honest scientists would explain the disappearance of the hockeystick, and would apologize to the world and the scientific community for introducing it in the first place.  This is only one of several acts of strange and unscientific behavior by the IPCC.

Global temperatures

According to the IPCC, the global temperature has risen 0.6 degree Celsius + 0.2 degree Celsius over the past 140 years (http://tinyurl.com/2vt3ep). This is about 1 degree Fahrenheit.  This is not a very big number and is no cause for alarm. Much of the increase occurred before 1940, when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were lower.  There was a cooling period from 1940 to about 1975, during a period when CO2 emissions were much greater.  The rest of the 0.6 degree Celsius warming has occurred since 1975.  All of this indicates that the relationship between CO2 emissions and global warming is complex, apparently quite weak, and probably not global, if it exists at all.  According to Dr. Art Robinson, founder of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, there has never been a single experiment which shows that mankind has had an effect on global temperatures.

For example, temperature records and studies of the South Pole show that the temperature has been declining at the Amundsen-Scott Base for the past 50 years (http://tinyurl.com/y6cyso) while the CO2 air concentrations have increased.  We should also doubt that mankind has been the cause of such cooling either.

There are many uncertainties in understanding our climate, not the least of which has been the actual measurement of temperature.  These uncertainties require caution whenever conclusions are attempted.  The IPCC itself has said, "There are uncertainties in the annual data due to data gaps, random instrumental errors and uncertainties, uncertainties in bias corrections in the ocean surface temperature data and also in adjustments for urbanization over the land.  Over both the last 140 years and 100 years, the best estimate is that the global average surface temperature has increased by 0.6±0.2°C." (http://tinyurl.com/2v4vpb).  Thus the estimate of 0.6 degree Celsius warming is itself suspect because of the uncertainties in measuring global temperatures.  It is only an estimate and well beyond direct measurement and verification with accurate gauges.

Thanks to the great work by Fred Singer and Denis Avery - authors of Unstoppable Global Warming - we now know that in the past 1 million years there have been 600 warming periods.  The CO2 concentrations have varied as well during this time.  However, the maximum temperatures usually occurred 600-800 years before the maximum of the atmospheric CO2.  This calls into question the true relationship between CO2 and global temperatures.  Is there such a relationship and what is it? The Sun remains the primary suspect driving these climate forcing functions.

Global Warming on Mars

There also appears to be a warming trend taking place on Mars as deposits of ice and solid CO2 (known on earth as dry ice) shrink towards the Martian South Pole (http://tinyurl.com/56lom and http://tinyurl.com/2fj6as). Obviously, the one thing in common with the Earth and Mars is our sun varying in its energy output.  There are no man-made sources of CO2 on Mars, nor were there significant man-made sources of CO2 on Earth one million years ago.  Clearly, global warming can and has occurred without man's involvement.  It is likely doing so today.

There have also been about 20 ice ages in the last two million years (http://tinyurl.com/yxqn42).  The Vostok Ice core from Antarctica goes back in time 420,000 years.  Since that time they have found that there have been five interglacial periods including the present one we are in (http://tinyurl.com/yxqn42).  The temperatures in those interglacial periods were all warmer than the current interglacial period by about 2 degrees Celsius.  Today's temperatures simply are not that unusual when placed in historical context.

Sea Water Temperatures

We are told the sea temperatures are rising and more severe hurricanes are on their way.  Though it was predicted that more hurricanes would hit the US in 2006, none did.  Our climate system is very complex and poorly understood.  To claim a masterful knowledge of the Earth's climate - let alone claim pending doom - and then to propose costly legislation to alter the it is simply not science.

The situations with sea water temperatures are also complex and poorly understood, and vary noticeably around the world.  A recent article (http://tinyurl.com/ytrvgw) explained that we have learned ocean temperatures have cooled since 2003 to a depth of 750 meters (more than 2400 feet), possibly deeper.

This significant heat loss in the oceans was discovered by more modern temperature collection equipment and improved data analyses of past temperature measurements.  The actual causes of sea water temperature fluctuations are not well known, but since sea water contains 1000 times more energy than the atmosphere, we'd do well to understand it better and minimize errors in measuring it.

For policy makers to propose Draconian energy policy solutions based on such poor understanding is more than a fool's errand, it is in fact dangerous for our nation.

Sea levels

We have seen the alarmist stories of rapid sea levels rising 20 or even 200 feet, of tidal waves smashing into New York City and islands being submerged.  Actual sea level data from around the world tell a more mundane, if not boring story.

According to climatologist Robert Balling, the sea level has been rising a modest 1.8 mm a year for the past 8000 years, perhaps longer.  We'd expect this after emerging from thousands of years in a deep ice age.  Balling's research has been affirmed by Simon Holgate and Philip Woodworth of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, who reported a 1.45mm per year rise from 1954 to 2003 (http://tinyurl.com/2tq9rb).  Their study also found that:

1. The earth had NOT warmed to a degree that is unprecedented over many millennia;
   
   
2. The warming had NOT resulted in an accelerated melting of the vast majority of the world's mountain glaciers and polar ice caps; and
   
   
3. Global sea level had NOT risen at an ever increasing rate.

The real-world results of Holgate and others clearly suggest that all of these claims to the contrary are likely to be false (http://tinyurl.com/3yjxmr and http://tinyurl.com/2tq9rb).

For those who worry about sea levels, keep in mind that they have been rising and falling for millions of years.   In the Hawaiian Islands there is clear evidence of past sea levels both meters above and below the current sea level.

Antarctic Ice Sheet

Finally, there is growing evidence the Antarctic Ice Sheet is growing, not melting, as many have argued (See http://tinyurl.com/2tq9rb). 

Wingham et al have shown that “Contrary to all the horror stories one hears about global warming-induced mass wastage of the Antarctic ice sheet leading to rising sea levels that gobble up coastal lowlands worldwide, the most recent decade of pertinent real-world data suggest that forces leading to just the opposite effect are apparently prevailing, even in the face of what climate alarmists typically describe as the greatest warming of the world in the past two millennia or more (http://tinyurl.com/ymcq6d).

The global warmers themselves are in deep denial when they ignore the hundreds of scientific articles produced by hundreds of scientists who are questioning if not refuting their hysterical screams of alarm.

While the proponents of global warming like to say there is a small minority of skeptics who don't accept the majority view, there is in fact a huge body of literature which does not support their pet theory.  While it is permissible to suppress and ignore adverse testimony or to attack and discredit adverse witnesses in America's courtrooms, it is most assuredly not permissible to do so in the field of science.  We must distinguish between science and such unprofessional lawyerly tactics.  Such courtroom tactics in science amount to scientific malpractice.  The data must settle the disputes, not willful deception.

Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is the science and energy reporter for Hawaii Reporter and the Director of the Center for Science, Climate, & Environment at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. A resident of Kaneohe, he has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. He has also taught chemistry and energy at the university level. His interest in the communication of science has led to several communications awards, hundreds of speeches, and many appearances on television and talk shows. He can be reached via email at mailto:foxm011@hawaii.rr.com.