Global warming: Know the facts

Mankind has faced few challenges greater than global warming.  If ever there was a time for informed debate in the community, this is it.  Therefore, it is deeply troubling that climate change deniers like Peter Chiesa go to such lengths to conjure up purported facts, then try to foist them off as science.

Let’s examine Chiesa’s “On wrong models and global warming†column (The Lakeville Journal, June 18) for examples of substituting science fiction for facts.

Those in denial about climate change point to elevated temperatures of 1998 and claim that global cooling has taken place since then.  On the basis of this single assertion, they attempt to discredit global warming and its consequence, climate change.  What are the facts?  It is true that one of the greatest El Nino events ever observed took place that year, pushing temperatures to a then-record high of 1.04 degrees F above average.  

Contrary to the deniers’ position, however, the reality is that yet-higher temperatures were experienced in 2005 — 1.10 degrees F above average.  Even more persuasive, global data show that, through 2008, eight of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001.  You can find these statistics at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, the world’s largest archive of weather data.  The Web site is ncdc.noaa.gov.

Global warming skeptics also assert that high numbers of sunspots may be the cause of global warming.  More accurately stated, the issue of total solar irradiation, which varies with sunspot activity, has been studied exhaustively by astronomers worldwide.  Their data show an increase in solar output over the last 30 years of 0.004 percent per decade, contributing a miniscule fraction of the global temperature rise already seen.  For further information, go to nicholas.duke.edu.

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In his column, Chiesa criticizes the use of models, suggesting that alarms about global warming are overblown because of inaccuracies in various models. As demonstrated above, it is not models but rather incontrovertible, peer-reviewed facts that refute the denial side’s most cherished notions.  

To illustrate the remarkable lengths to which global warming deniers will go, consider the following.  In a Washington Post Op-Ed piece (Feb 15, 2009), George Will stated that “According to the University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.† Sounds very convincing, doesn’t it?  Will attacks a central tenet of global warming with a seemingly powerful “fact†from a credible-sounding academic center.

Not only is Will’s “fact†totally and demonstrably false, but also those in denial fabricated the very existence of the Arctic Climate Research Center itself.  What actually does exist is the Polar Research Group, within the University of Illinois’ Department of Atmospheric Sciences. Their data absolutely demolish the centerpiece of George Will’s contention.  The link to real science is arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere.

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Climate change skeptics question whether rising CO2 levels are man-derived or from natural sources like volcanoes.  Stated more generally, they challenge the thesis that fossil-fuel burning is the primary cause of observed rises.  

Using analytical techniques developed within the last decade, scientists have conclusively addressed this issue. They measure the changing concentrations of carbon’s isotopes C-12 and C-13 in atmospheric CO2.  (Another isotope of carbon, C-14, is used worldwide for dating archeological discoveries.)

In a mechanism known as “selective isotopic uptake,†organic matter such as trees, plants and animals selectively incorporate more C-12 than C-13 in their life processes.  When burned, coal, oil and natural gas derived from that organic matter therefore release CO2 more rich in C-12 than C-13.  Just as C-14 allows us to date artifacts, a rising level of C-12 relative to C-13 allows us to trace the origin of that CO2 to fossil fuels. In fact, atmospheric CO2 is increasingly marked by C-12, refuting yet another central tenet of climate change deniers.

Disinformation is also utilized as a campaign strategy in economic as well as scientific realms.  Skeptics point to the purported costs of controlling carbon, arguing that society cannot bear this burden, particularly during the current period of financial stress. The enormous cost figures they cite lack meaningful documentation.  

To the contrary, McKinsey & Company, a global business consulting and research firm with more than 80 locations around the world, has spent more than three years in analyzing highly profitable opportunities in efficiency investments.  Their major study, released in December 2007 only after exceptionally careful internal review, showed that the costs of controlling carbon were likely to be relatively trivial.  

Available on McKinsey’s Global Institute Web site at mckinsey.com, their findings are that worldwide expenditures of $170 billion a year through 2020 would cut energy-demand growth by half while generating average annual internal rates of return of 17 percent.  Major reductions of CO2 would result from those efficiency investments.  The point is that Americans squander so much energy at present that efficiency investments, on balance, will pay for themselves and still reward investors at rates well above financial markets’ historical returns. What has more credibility, the undocumented claims of deniers who forecast economic catastrophe or McKinsey’s data, based on lengthy, carefully reviewed findings?

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Perverting science for personal or corporate gain is hardly new — think of the tobacco industry.  With no selfish interest at stake, Chiesa’s motivation is unclear.  Presumably, he fears what he doesn’t understand. To his credit, he admits that “As a blurber, I wouldn’t know science if it fell on me.â€

But the facts are in the public domain, readily available to anyone investing even a modest effort in searching for answers.  It is essential that there be informed debate in the community, based on facts and peer-reviewed conclusions.  The Lakeville Journal’s readers deserve better than fabrications and pseudo-science on an issue of local, national and global significance.

Roger Liddell has split his time between Lakeville and New York City for 25 years. He has worked as an investment advisor specializing in energy, as well as being an environmental advocate, for 35 years. Liddell addressed the Salisbury Forum in the fall of 2005 on energy issues.