June 3, 2007

Falling for the Trap
President Bush made a rare political misstep this past Friday. He called on 15 nations including the US to set greenhouse-gas emission standards. While it is possible that the climate is warming, recent scientific evidence shows that so-called greenhouse gasses are not man-made in any significant number, that CO₂ does not trap heat and lastly, there is absolutely nothing human intervention can do to change the global climate.

Bush, under pressure from sagging approval numbers thanks mostly to a liberal media, made the concession in an effort to appeal to ignorant environmentalists. To compound this blunder of fact, NASA administrator Michael Griffin was interviewed about global warming just hours before the president made his speech. Griffin stated the obvious and made some good points, albeit ill-timed for his boss.

Griffin said, "First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown... and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings - where and when - are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

Well put Mr. Griffin! Just who is supposed to be in charge of a global thermostat? What is the "perfect" temperature for the Earth? Dr. Gavin Schmidt of NASA tried to put a political spin on it saying, "Griffin's comments seem surprisingly naive. We are not in a situation where we are shopping around for an ideal climate, but that we have adapted to the climate we have, and that therefore large changes to it are not likely to be beneficial."

Oh, really? Now, it's "large changes?" Of course, "large changes" may not be beneficial. However, neither Schmidt nor anyone else can predict next week's temperature let alone a hundred years from now. Besides, the temperatures they have selected to average to give us a picture of the Earth's average temperature are biased in the first place.

While there will no doubt be a "kill the messenger" attitude at NASA, the fact remains that no one really knows what the climate will be. The "experts" predicted some 37 hurricanes for last year's hurricane season. There were none. Zip, zilch, zero, nada. This year they are predicting 17. Anyone care to make a wager?

TLG

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