World Concerns

The Scientific Case Against the

Global Climate Treaty

Perhaps the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the science underlying the FCCC has been prepared by Dr. S. Fred Singer, professor (emeritus) of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, founder and president of The Science & Environmental Policy Project, author or editor of 15 books and numerous scientific articles, and an atmospheric physicist who has served the U.S. government as Assistant Administrator for Policy, Environmental Protection Agency; and chief scientist for the Department of Transportation. He created and developed earth satellite systems and pioneered remote sensing techniques to measure atmospheric parameters from satellites. His latest book, Hot Talk, Cold Science, explains precisely where and how the current climate change policy departs from sound science. Here is an excerpt from the overview.

The Global Climate Treaty rests on three propositions that are either questionable or demonstrably false:

1: The Climate Treaty supposes that a human influence has been detected in the climate record of the last hundred years, thereby validating the computer-generated predictions of a major future warming. But the climate has not warmed significantly over the last half-century, and not at all over the last 20 years, in contrast to theoretical predictions.

2: It further supposes that any future warming would produce catastrophic consequences, including droughts, floods, hurricanes, rapid and significant sea level rise, the collapse of agriculture, and the spread of tropical disease. But the recorded climate record of the past 3,000 years appears to dispel that. Historically, warmer temperatures have been, on the whole, beneficial for human welfare and the development of civilization.

3: It presumes -- with no scientific definition -- to know which atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases are "dangerous" and which are not. To stabilize CO₂ concentration at present levels, 30 percent above pre-industrial values, would require a drastic reduction of emissions and energy use -- more than 60 percent worldwide. But again, the historical record indicates that higher levels of CO₂ -- and they have been much higher in the past -- may in fact provide benefits. Some scientists, including the late Roger Revelle, known as the father of greenhouse warming, have speculated that some of these benefits have already turned up in improved agricultural yields.

Let's take a broader look at these points. The main conclusion of the UN-sponsored science advisory group, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." This artful but essentially meaningless phrase has been misread by policymakers as proof that computer models predicting a warming of 1 to 3.5 degrees celsius by the year 2100 have been validated. Such confusion is understandable. The IPCC Policy-makers Summary juxtaposes that phrase with the results of climate model calculations of future warming, even though such a connection is specifically denied in the body of the 1996 IPCC report (p.434). (Emphasis added.)

Such misinterpretations to the contrary, the global temperature record of this century, which shows periods of both warming and cooling, can best be explained in terms of natural climate fluctuations, caused by the complex interaction between atmosphere and oceans, and perhaps stimulated by variations of solar radiation that drives the Earth's climate system.

(Dr. Singer's book, Hot Talk, Cold Science, may be ordered at the Sovereignty International exhibit.)

Playing statistical games

Dr. Bert Bolin has never denied, nor downplayed, the uncertainty that permeates the science of climate change. Others, however, have taken the mustard-seed of uncertainty that "suggests discernible human influence on global climate," and transformed it into a mountain of cataclysmic doom and gloom propaganda, designed to frighten unsuspecting environmentally sensitive citizens into supporting unnecessary and imprudent controls over energy use in developed nations. The mustard-seed, and all the subsequent mountain-building is not derived from observations of scientific fact, nor from valid conclusions produced by the excruciating, time-consuming "scientific process." Virtually all of the speculation about rising seas and expanding deserts, drop-dead diseases and devastating weather events, is derived from statistical computer games marketed under the GCM label. The problem, according to The Economist (November 29, 1997), "the models keep misbehaving."

"There is not yet, for instance, a model that can `predict' the past with precision -- most models estimate that the amount of warming should be about twice as large as has actually occurred. So assertions that the future projections of such models are correct need to be taken with a tablespoon or two of salt. Indeed, it is only in the past year that a model has been made that can accurately predict the present -- that is, it behaves, without the aid of fudging, like the current climate. This model, created at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, suggests milder, more gradual, increases in temperature than the IPCC did, and its estimate of the human fingerprint on climate change is smaller."

That doesn't sound much like the work of "obstructionist industry toadies,"

Moreover, The Economist reports that "even the best of the world's supercomputers are not powerful enough to cope with all the variables that make up the climate." Max Suarez of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center agrees. He says it's "iffy" whether anthropogenic greenhouse warming is even underway. "I wouldn't trust the models to that level of detail yet. Especially if you're trying to explain the very small [temperature] change we've seen...." The computers on which the GCM games are played are years away from having the horsepower to approximate the global climate. Klause Hasselmann of the Max Planc Institute for Meteorology, says "The next 10 years will tell; we're going to have to wait that long to really see."

Another reason the computer models keep misbehaving is, "that there is still nothing like a consensus over the exact effects on the climate of sunlight, clouds, oceans, aerosols, and living things," according to The Economist. "When assumptions about these factors change, so do the results. The IPCC's own `best estimate' of sea-level rise over the next century decreased by a quarter between 1990 and 1995, and that of the amount of warming fell by a third...." These are the same "misbehaving" computers that produce the warming predictions at various stabilization figures. Such exercises are, indeed, statistical gamesmanship. Delegates should look again to see who are the players.

More statistical gamesmanship

A popular PGO publication reports: "There are so many scientific uncertainties and unresolved issues surrounding the use of sinks for quantitative emissions targets that it is ecologically irresponsible to allow the use of the net approach at this stage."

What?

If computer analyses of data collected by real people, from real sinks, by the best technology available is so fraught with "scientific uncertainties and unresolved issues" as to render its use "ecologically irresponsible, how can we trust global warming predictions, generated by unreal simulations of unknown future climate events, analyzed by computers widely acknowledged to be inadequate?

And more statistical games...

The Herald International Tribune chose the opening day of COP III to announce "Americans Want Action on Climate" on the front page. The burning desire of 260 million Americans is represented by 953 scientifically (carefully) selected people. It may be only a coincidence, but all the polls conducted by PGOs, and many by the media reach similar conclusions.

Polls conducted by organizations that do not have a seat on the global-warming bandwagon conclude that Americans are skeptical about global warming claims, and want no action that will result in higher energy prices. These polls, however, are quickly attacked as "industry funded." What games PGOs play!

Kyoto Report Table of Contents | Essay: Human Achievement