For example, the UN's press kit says that projected temperature increases could cause ecosystems and agricultural zones to "shift towards the poles.... Forests, deserts, rangelands, and other unmanaged ecosystems would face new climatic stresses. As a result, many will decline or fragment, and individual species will be pushed to extinction."
Not likely, according to the Center. "In the case of rising atmospheric CO2 concentration, ecosystems that are experiencing stress will likely be helped the most, as the many biological benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment are generally expressed to a greater degree under such circumstances."
The analysis goes on to report: "Whether or not climate change occurs, the
carbon dioxide content of the air will rise appreciably. This phenomenon will
enhance the productivity of nearly all crops [see web site for citations] and it will
have the greatest percentage effect on vegetation exposed to less-than-favorable
growing conditions, including stresses imposed by high temperature, soil salinity,
aerial pollutants, lack of sunlight and insufficient water."
The assumption that agricultural zones will "shift toward the poles" is also flawed. "This assumption ignores the fact that the optimum temperature for plant growth and development typically rises with increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide." (Three different citations support this fact in the analysis.) "Consequently, not only would typically predicted increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and air temperature not hurt agricultural plants, they would actually promote their growth and development. And this beneficial phenomenon would occur right where the plants are growing today, providing no impetus for any poleward shift in agricultural production zones...."
Point by point, the analysis shreds the press kit's claims of doom, gloom, disaster, and catastrophe. About water resources, the press kit says straightforwardly that "climate models are still unable to make precise regional predictions." But that doesn't stop the authors from claiming that rising carbon dioxide will produce a "wetter world," causing more intense "downpours" and increased floods. while, at the same time, predicting that "arid and semi-arid regions will therefore be particularly sensitive to reduced rainfall....".
The Center concludes that "the authors of this [press kit] seem determined to conclude that
moisture-sensitive regions and enterprises will suffer from reduced moisture availability in "a
wetter world."
Perhaps the largest such review ever conducted was that of Idso (1992), which utilized papers published over the decade subsequent to the reviews of Kimball. This comprehensive assessment of the pertinent literature incorporated a total of 1,087 observations of plant responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from 342 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles authored by 484 scientists residing in 27 foreign countries and 27 American states, representing 24 universities, 30 American government research organizations and 88 foreign institutions.
From this vast array of studies, it was determined that 93% of the plant responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment were positive, 5% were negligible, and only 2% were negative. In viewing this comprehensive result, one simple fact stands out clear and unmistakable: nearly all plants grow better with more CO2 in the air.
Global warming advocates seem determined to convince the
public that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will
cause the global mean temperature to rise by as much as 1 to
2.5 degrees C over the next century. There is pitifully little
evidence to support such a claim. If the assertion were true,
then it would seem reasonable to point to some past warming
period and demonstrate a corresponding rise in carbon
dioxide as evidence in support of the claim.
Looking back over the last millennium, there is a distinct period of global warming that began before 1000 and lasted until about 1200. Science calls this period the "Medieval Climate Optimum," even though the global mean temperature was significantly warmer than it is this century. Then came what science calls the "Little Ice Age," when global mean temperatures plummeted to levels significantly below current levels. Strangely, during this entire 900 year period, when global temperatures fluctuated wildly, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere varied by no more than 6 ppm. In the 20th century, when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere shot up from about 280 ppm to 360 ppm, the global mean temperature seems to have ended its recovery from the Little Ice Age, and has actually begun to decline slightly. One might reasonably conclude from these scientific facts, that the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere has little or nothing to do with global warming -- or cooling.
These scientific facts have been widely reported, most recently by the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change in Tempe, Arizona (http://www.co2science.org).
Global warming advocates can point to neither historic, nor scientific fact to support the claim that increasing carbon in the atmosphere will cause global warming. Their only support comes from computer projections that have been revised downward consistently for a decade. Global warming advocates may be able to ignore the science, but the rest of the world cannot.
The Center's findings are supported by another scientific paper accepted for presentation at the Fall, 1997 Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, by Dr. S. Fred Singer. The paper is boldly entitled: "Global Warming Will Not Raise Sea Level." (The paper is available for review at the Science and Environmental Policy Project's web site: http://www.sepp.org/scirsch/slr-agu.html).
Singer also says that "We would like to remind reporters that just ten years ago, similar groups were passing out global warming videos to the D.C. press showing sea level halfway up the Washington monument. By their own measure, the "coastal catastrophe" would appear to be somewhat diminished.
"We would add too that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its 1990, 1992, and 1996 science reports, steadily rolled back its estimates of both temperature increase and sea level rise. Perhaps the activist cliche that governments have to "act now before it's too late" really means 'before the problem disappears.`"
The UNFCCC says flatly that the cryosphere will shrink. The Center correctly says that "no one knows that the cryosphere will shrink in the near future, or any time, especially as a result of a rise in the air's CO2 concentration." The claim, at best, expresses the "potential consequences of the climate model prediction that mountain glaciers could be reduced by one third to one half over the next 100 years."
In response the UNFCCC's claim, the Center asks, "Would such a shrinkage of the cryosphere be all that bad, even if it were to occur? Fresh water locked up in ice is fresh water unavailable for any useful purpose, such as feeding streams, rivers and groundwater. And it makes the land it covers likewise unavailable."
The researchers say that "1.7 pentagrams of carbon per year [absorbed by
the sinks] roughly equal the continent's fossil fuel carbon emissions of
1.6 pentagrams." Policy wonks who insist that the Second Assessment
Report (SAR) "settled the science," are quick to challenge the validity of
the study claiming that the study is "riddled with uncertainties." Such is
the nature of science. The SAR is "riddled" with admissions of
"uncertainty." The strongest statement in the SAR only "suggests" a
human influence on global climate.
The point is clearly this: the science is not settled! The science will not
be settled by declaration -- of the UNFCCC, the IPCC, or the President
of the United States. The science will be settled only when the facts are
known, an agonizingly slow process that may take a decade or a century.
Legally binding restrictions on carbon emissions are clearly premature,
and probably unnecessary. Proponents of the Kyoto Protocol hold up the
"precautionary principle" as justification for moving forward in the
absence of scientific certainty. "If there is a chance that global warming
will intensify, should we not move forward," proponents ask?
The same case can be made for the opponents of the Kyoto Protocol: "If
there is a chance that the Kyoto Protocol will destroy the world's most productive economies,"
opponents may ask, "should we not delay implementation?" If the precautionary principle has
any validity at all, it must cut both ways. At the moment, it is far more certain that the Kyoto
Protocol will have much greater impact on the global economy than on the global climate. At the
moment, the global economy needs no further negative impacts, especially those caused by
panic-policies which promise few, if any, environmental benefits.
Why the hurry? Perhaps the prime movers of the global warming hypothesis realize that the science is overtaking the propaganda. Every day that passes, the shaky scenario on which the global warming hypothesis rests, wobbles more precariously against the growing revelations of scientific research. The far-reaching policies of the global warming advocates must be implemented quickly, before the world discovers there is no global warming problem to solve.
Make no mistake; the world is discovering the difference between what science knows about global warming, and what the propagandists are saying about global warming. The gulf between the two widens daily.
Ten years ago, when Jim Hansen made his famous scripted pronouncement to then-Senator Al Gore's Senate Committee, the world was in global-warming darkness, and accepted as gospel the profound utterances of those who sounded as if they were quoting from the sacred scriptures of science. Scientific fact, though, cannot be extinguished by mistakes, inaccuracies, computer models, propaganda, or even bold faced lies. When the human mind encounters a bedrock truth of nature, the resulting spark ignites a fire that must eventually consume every shadow of ignorance, or special interest that dims its universal brilliance.
The total truth about global climate has yet to be discovered. As scientists continue to dig toward that bedrock truth, they strike little sparks that begin to illuminate the way toward the mother lode. The brighter the path, the faster the discovery. What once was global-warming darkness is beginning to fade in the light of scientific discovery. Those who fear the light try in vain to extinguish it, by demonizing the discoverers. Once the tiniest spark of truth is ignited, it cannot be extinguished.
The truth about global climate is burning brighter every passing day. In its light, the world can see clearly now, that some global warming advocates are sincere, but sincerely wrong. Others use global warming as an opportunity to jump on the cash-wagon. Still others expect global warming to be an excuse for tightening control over free people in order to globalize governance.
The people who read the expanding scientific literature on global climate are disassociating themselves from the premature claims of a decade ago. In America, more than 18,000 scientists have publicly made that disassociation. The light of scientific fact is reaching beyond the scientific community. Radio, newspapers, and the Internet carry bright rays of truth to a growing number of households that are discovering they have been paying billions of dollars for global warming programs that are unnecessary. The need for the Kyoto Protocol, indeed, even for the Convention on Climate Change, is fading fast in the face of scientific understanding.
Global warming advocates must hurry to create cash-generating, wealth-redistributing, people-controlling policies -- before the global warming excuse completely vanishes.