We sincerely doubt that anybody has the definitive position on Global Warming. Opinion rules. Everyone on the left sees the end of the world, while everyone on the right pooh-poohs the danger signals. Since society’s response to Global Warming will certainly affect the automobile, we thought we’d provide a venue for some good-humored contrarianism. —David E. Davis, Jr.

First, we were treated to a report by a few hundred scientists. This report basically said, “We scientists really, really believe that Global Warming is a fact and that increased levels of CO2 are responsible and if we don’t act now, really, really bad things are going to happen.”

Second, we hear Hollywood is about to launch a couple of movies that depict the victim of Global Warming, the environment, taking revenge on its assailant, people. Kind of like if Charles Bronson came back as a tornado with a bad mustache.

Third, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth wins an Oscar.

Fourth, another group of scientists mentions that maybe some of Mr. Gore’s “facts” were just a little bit off the mark, and in a few instances (e.g. claim: ocean levels will rise by twenty feet, while even the report mentioned above predicts increases in inches, not feet) were vastly overblown.

The first, we are told by the press, will “end all debate about Global Warming and the pressing need to reduce our ‘carbon footprint.’” Okay, that’s not a direct quote from anyone, but that’s the general tone.

The second, a vengeful environment executing judgment on its inhabitants, according to Hollywood flacks, will “raise awareness” of the world’s desperate plight and encourage us to change our way of living.

The third, Al Gore’s Oscar, comes at the same time the Dixie Chicks win a Grammy (another Hollywood awards factory) while hundreds of radio stations refuse to play their music and their CD sales are pitiful.

And the fourth, well, we’ll get to that. So now let’s do a little parsing of the words “science” and “scientists.”

Science is a process by which people seek to discover and describe a truth in the physical realm. It’s called the scientific method.

Scientists are a bunch of people specializing in various kinds of exploration using the scientific method to search for physical truths.

The problem here is that when it comes to the environment, the scientific method cannot be used.

The scientific method says that to declare something “true,” one must create an experiment that replicates theoretical results, like proving E=mc^2 by blowing up two perfectly good Japanese cities. Usually there is a control part of the experiment, which does not include a key ingredient of the theory. In the pharmaceutical business, when a drug is tested on one group of people, a similar group of people (the control group) is given a placebo (a sugar pill) to test the difference between getting the drug and not getting the drug. Or in the previous example, dropping a giant goose down pillow on two other perfectly good Japanese cities.

So to “prove” the notion that A) the world is warming and B) CO2 is the culprit, one would have to take the Earth with its CO2 levels, create an Earth II with capped CO2 levels, let the two Earths spin in space together for a couple hundred years, and then compare the results.

If Earth II showed no temperature increase, and Earth I did, voilà—CO2 would be the culprit. If Earth II showed the same temperature increase as Earth I, it would be back to the drawing board.

To date, we know of no Earth II being built. So the scientific method is off the table.

What is being used in our quest for the truth about Global Warming and CO2? Well, for the most part, computer models. And let us state here as clearly as possible that it may be scientists using computer models, but computer models are not science. They are a technological tool.

And while computer models are important technological tools, they are far from infallible. They require a whole list of assumptions that make them unreliable, especially when applied to something as complex as weather.

All you have to do is watch the weather report on TV, and you will witness forecasters using three or four different computer models, each showing a different prediction, and then splitting the difference in their forecast. And this is for what’s going to happen tomorrow.

These same sorts of computer models promised us a disastrous 2006 hurricane season. Didn’t happen.

So for these scientists to use their computer models to tell us what will happen in thirty-five or fifty years is, if not mendacious, highly suspect. Remember, thirty years ago Time Magazine reported that scientists (probably the fathers of the current batch) were predicting a new Ice Age, and we were all going to die.

Once a scientist steps away from the cover of the scientific method and its demonstrable physical facts, he is just as liable to be as full of baloney as the guy who bends pipe down at Muffler King.

WHAT ABOUT THE ALLEGED CULPRIT, CO2?
 
It is has a direct been correlation observed that between there higher levels of CO2 in the air beginning with the Industrial Revolution some 300 years ago and certain acceleration in Global Warming.

This “discovery” begat the “greenhouse effect” theory, which begat the whole Global Warming controversy.

Without asking just how reliable the Earth’s temperature gathering was 300 years ago, if one simply accepts that the one happened due to the other, again there is no scientific way to prove the theory.

It is clear that the Earth has gone through a series of warming and cooling cycles, from the heat and humidity of the dinosaur age to the Ice Age in a geological blink of an eye.

And though there are many theories about why one or the other happened, from volcanoes to smashing asteroids, nobody really knows.

In a court of law, the coincidence of warming and the Industrial Revolution’s CO2 would be termed circumstantial and perhaps inadmissible.

We read that there has been much concern in the Alps recently because they have had the warmest winter “in 1300 years.” This is presented to us as more proof that the world is warming. It could prove instead that we’ve had a 1300-year cold snap. And if the Alps were really warmer 1300 years ago, a whole millennium before the Industrial Revolution and its CO, what was the culprit then? Goat farts?

Another perfectly logical explanation for the Earth’s temperature fluctuations is solar activity, fluctuations in the energy radiated to Earth, which have warmed and cooled the planet.

Of course, CO2 aficionados pooh-pooh this suggestion as a theory with no scientific evidence. But, guys and gals, as we have demonstrated, you have no scientific evidence on your side either. It’s either declare a draw, or it’s pistols at dawn.

So, class, let’s review. There are scientists and there is science. They are different. Scientists are free to use any technology they want, but unless they can reproduce an outcome using the scientific method, it’s not science. The Earth may or may not be warming long-term, but the Earth has seen this movie before. And the sun, not CO, may or may not be the largest influence on Earth’s climate, but nobody really knows.

Next section. The passion infusing the argument. Why is it so (sorry for the word) heated? While the first section is more or less straightforward, we warn that this answer will get a little complicated. It involves Cohort Theory and religious elements.

Cohort Theory basically tries to explain human behavior as “You are now what you were then.” The idea is that humans assemble their values and beliefs early. By the time people are in their middle to late teens, these values and beliefs become core guiding principles for the balance of their lives. And though how these guiding principles are expressed may change, the core doesn’t.

For instance, if a young person finds that helping others makes him feel good, this becomes a core value. When he is in his twenties, he is the guy who is happy to help somebody move. In his thirties, he participates in his kids’ activities. In his forties and fifties, he gives generously to charity. And in his sixties, he collects splinters for Habitat for Humanity. Different expressions, same value.

Now, let’s look at the ages of the people—scientists, politicians, advocates, and activists—who are leading the Global Warming movement. They are forty to sixty years of age—an assumption, yes, but a pretty good one nonetheless. This means they were born in the years from 1947 to 1967. One description of this cohort is the Baby Boom.

Another is the Woodstock Generation.

These people grew up and formed their core value systems during the “peace and love” era. These were the years that birthed the environmental movement thanks to Rachel Carson, the years that saw the publication of Mother Earth News and the introduction of Earth Day. Other milestones included the banning of DDT, Agent Orange, Three Mile Island, and on and on. And though these people felt strongly about their environmental values, being young, poor, and powerless, all they could do was paint banners and chant.

But today these folks are senior executives, full professors, and influential pundits. They have the power to force change and lead society. It should come as no surprise that we have grown-ups telling us the same things they tried to tell us as teens in the Sixties and Seventies. And since we ignored them then, by God, they’re not going to let us ignore them now. In fact, they are going to shove their beliefs down our throats whether we like it or not. So there.

So much for the effect of Cohort Theory. What about this religion thing? We hope we have convinced you that there is precious little science behind Global Warming. Instead, what we have is much more powerful: it’s belief. Whether or not Global Warming can be proved is immaterial, because these people—born and raised in the Age of Aquarius—believe it is so.

SO NOW WE ENTER THE REALM OF RELIGION.

It there has been is precious put forward little science that while in the environmental movement, it has all the trappings of a religion.

There is a Deity, the Earth. The Deity provided man a beautiful place to live…a sort of perpetual Eden where lions and lambs frolicked on the greensward, where air and water were more pristine than any oxygen bar or Evian bottler could devise. We were happy. We obeyed the Commandments: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse. Then some idiot bit the apple clearly labeled “Industrial Revolution, watch out!” and it all went to hell.

Man became an enemy of nature, a kind of ravening beast who was intent on destroying the gracious, loving Deity who had given us life. We fouled the air, poisoned the water, laid bare and wasted bazillions of acres of our Deity’s very flesh to claw its riches into our filthy pockets. And we drove (gasp) SUVs.

Oh Brothers and Sisters, repent. Admit your sins. Cast off the trammels of your unnatural existence. Buy a Prius. Convert your house to those curly-cue bulbs. And for the love of Earth, don’t eat anything that’s raised more than 100 miles from your home lest we all suffer the cataclysm.

So. We have the munificent Deity, the garden, the original sin, the fall from grace. We have the true believers who have admitted their guilt and taken the true path. We have their priests thundering from their pulpits. And most of all, we have the sinners who obviously don’t give a shit and must be made…not persuaded…made to convert.

If this isn’t religion, we don’t know what is. And if it isn’t jihad, we don’t know what that is, either.

So, class, as you can clearly see, while there are lots of good arguments for reducing our energy use, being less dependent on what the State Department euphemistically calls “unstable regions,” saving money and cutting the trade imbalance, et cetera, the benefits are geopolitical and economic, not moral.

So don’t feel guilty when you fire up the old Porsche Cayenne to take the soccer team for ice cream. Don’t believe we have to go back to living in sod huts. Don’t let anyone cast down their eyes on you because you worked hard enough to afford a good life. Don’t buy the canard that we are too rich and too powerful, so it’s all our fault. Don’t let frustrated intellectuals, fanatics, and zealots legislate your life.

And pay no heed to sanctimonious guilt mongers like Al Gore, whose home uses $30,000 of energy a year. He’s just trying to compensate for losing the presidency by personally presiding over the saving of planet Earth. You are innocent until proven guilty. And the Earth doesn’t care.

So in closing, when it comes to the environment, don’t trust anyone under sixty.