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Global Warming: A Dozen Questions from a Non-Scientist that Deserve Direct Answers

Did you know that over the past century, our media has been arguing that unless we change our ways, we are going to either freeze to death or join Satan in the southwest corner of Hell? Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself (more on that point below).

Some among us, with a platform from which to shout, are desperately trying to convince the rest of us that global warming is a manmade phenomenon, unnatural, and fixable. The primary thrust of their argument is that the world has a very limited window of time within which to act to save the earth from disaster. Unless we find a way to reduce dramatically carbon dioxide emissions, they claim, the polar ice caps will melt, sea levels will rise over the next century, hurricanes will appear over the Field of Dreams in Iowa, and pigs will sprout wings. Ok, maybe not that last one.

But is any of this true? I am not a scientist, but I know a little something about history and politics, and my parents and teachers instilled within me more than a dollop of common sense. And I think that common sense and a little historical context is about all you need to understand this entire issue.

As I have been explaining to my law and history students for the past 16 years, humans have a natural tendency to use their own short life spans as a yardstick for measuring what is “normal.” For example, some people believe that winters were colder when they were kids and the snow was deeper and more plentiful. Therefore, when the media tells us the winters are slightly warmer today and snowfall less plentiful, the natural conclusion of the uninformed and non-thinking among us is that what is happening today is “abnormal”—and thus something to fear.

Here is another example, this one dealing with presidential politics. If you don’t know history, then you accept the charge that the current Patriot Act is the greatest single threat to our liberty ever forced upon us by a president (as some are fond of claiming). Elements of it may arguably be unconstitutional. But you don’t need to be a strong George Bush supporter (I am not) to know that such a charge is patently ridiculous. Even a cursory understanding of what Abraham Lincoln did during his presidency to keep the Union together (he suspended Habeas Corpus, jailed opponents, and exiled an elected Congressman for speaking out in a manner that might help the enemy) demonstrates Bush’s actions are tame by comparison. But I don’t know anyone who was alive in 1861 so many people use his or her own life experience to determine what is “normal.” The same thing is happening (again) with the global warming hysteria sweeping the world.

For the sake of discussion, let’s ignore the movement’s socialist underpinnings of redistributing the world’s wealth, and forget that atheists and the irreligious proselytize global warming more fervently than the Church of Latter Day Saints collects genealogical data. Let’s assume instead that we have an earth that is slightly warming.

Here are a dozen questions, seriously posited and respectfully submitted, that deserve straightforward answers in order to discover whether a rising temperature on earth is unusual or even manmade. Everyone who advocates the manmade global warming theory should be able to answer these questions with convincing data and a straight face—quickly and easily. After all, the debate is over, right?

1. Proponents of manmade global warming are deeply concerned that unless the world acts now, the mean temperature of the earth may rise a few degrees over the next century. In other words, today’s temperature would become “abnormal” and hence we must change our way of life to prevent that from occurring. According to the world’s scientists, the mean temperature of the earth has risen 6/10s of one degree Celsius over the past one hundred years. But the earth has experienced dramatically different mean temperatures over its billions of years of existence; indeed, it has witnessed widely varying temperatures over the just the past two millennia, and over the last several centuries. Question 1: How do we know that today’s mean temperature is “normal” and what the temperature we should be altering our entire way of life in order to maintain should be? Indeed, can you point to a lengthy period of Earth’s history where the globe‘s temperature was constant and “perfect?”

2. The Earth has experienced several ice ages. An ice age is a cyclical event triggered by a lengthy decline in the earth’s temperature harsh enough to expand the polar ice sheets, continental ice sheets, and mountain glaciers. The climate change was so severe that in places where I played baseball as a kid, ice sheets were a mile or more thick. This evidence is rooted in decades of hard demonstrable geological, chemical, and paleontological science. The last ice age ended roughly 8,000 B.C. Question 2: What triggered the earth to cool so dramatically for such long periods?

3. The reason the earth has had several ice ages is because each has, at some point, ended. The earth’s atmosphere warmed over a long period of time dramatically enough to cause the massive ice fields to recede and the sprawling polar caps to break apart and melt. Question 3: What triggered the earth to warm so dramatically as to bring about the end of each major ice age?

4. Sunspots appear as dark patches on the face of the sun (some as wide as 50,000 miles) because they are cooler than the rest of the star. Sunspots contract and expand, and appear and disappear over time because of rotation of the sun. Question 4: How do sunspots affect the mean temperature on earth, and can we control the size and intensity of sunspots? If we cannot, how can altering our way of life control Earth’s mean temperature?

5. Every time a location on earth experiences a heat wave or some other natural event linked to heat (a warm winter, an early spring, etc.), major media outlets routinely comment that these events are simply more evidence that global warming is underway, and that man is the cause of the warming. California suffered a massive freeze this winter that ruined its citrus crop, upstate New York was blanketed under 11 feet of snow, and the center of the country has been frozen for weeks with record-breaking sub-zero temperatures. Question 5: Why aren’t these events mentioned by the same reporters and editorialists as evidence contradicting manmade global warming?

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Global Warming: A Dozen Questions from a Non-Scientist that Deserve Direct Answers

Did you know that over the past century, our media has been arguing that unless we change our ways, we are going to either freeze to death or join Satan in the southwest corner of Hell? Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself (more on that point below).

Some among us, with a platform from which to shout, are desperately trying to convince the rest of us that global warming is a manmade phenomenon, unnatural, and fixable. The primary thrust of their argument is that the world has a very limited window of time within which to act to save the earth from disaster. Unless we find a way to reduce dramatically carbon dioxide emissions, they claim, the polar ice caps will melt, sea levels will rise over the next century, hurricanes will appear over the Field of Dreams in Iowa, and pigs will sprout wings. Ok, maybe not that last one.

But is any of this true? I am not a scientist, but I know a little something about history and politics, and my parents and teachers instilled within me more than a dollop of common sense. And I think that common sense and a little historical context is about all you need to understand this entire issue.

As I have been explaining to my law and history students for the past 16 years, humans have a natural tendency to use their own short life spans as a yardstick for measuring what is “normal.” For example, some people believe that winters were colder when they were kids and the snow was deeper and more plentiful. Therefore, when the media tells us the winters are slightly warmer today and snowfall less plentiful, the natural conclusion of the uninformed and non-thinking among us is that what is happening today is “abnormal”—and thus something to fear.

Here is another example, this one dealing with presidential politics. If you don’t know history, then you accept the charge that the current Patriot Act is the greatest single threat to our liberty ever forced upon us by a president (as some are fond of claiming). Elements of it may arguably be unconstitutional. But you don’t need to be a strong George Bush supporter (I am not) to know that such a charge is patently ridiculous. Even a cursory understanding of what Abraham Lincoln did during his presidency to keep the Union together (he suspended Habeas Corpus, jailed opponents, and exiled an elected Congressman for speaking out in a manner that might help the enemy) demonstrates Bush’s actions are tame by comparison. But I don’t know anyone who was alive in 1861 so many people use his or her own life experience to determine what is “normal.” The same thing is happening (again) with the global warming hysteria sweeping the world.

For the sake of discussion, let’s ignore the movement’s socialist underpinnings of redistributing the world’s wealth, and forget that atheists and the irreligious proselytize global warming more fervently than the Church of Latter Day Saints collects genealogical data. Let’s assume instead that we have an earth that is slightly warming.

Here are a dozen questions, seriously posited and respectfully submitted, that deserve straightforward answers in order to discover whether a rising temperature on earth is unusual or even manmade. Everyone who advocates the manmade global warming theory should be able to answer these questions with convincing data and a straight face—quickly and easily. After all, the debate is over, right?

1. Proponents of manmade global warming are deeply concerned that unless the world acts now, the mean temperature of the earth may rise a few degrees over the next century. In other words, today’s temperature would become “abnormal” and hence we must change our way of life to prevent that from occurring. According to the world’s scientists, the mean temperature of the earth has risen 6/10s of one degree Celsius over the past one hundred years. But the earth has experienced dramatically different mean temperatures over its billions of years of existence; indeed, it has witnessed widely varying temperatures over the just the past two millennia, and over the last several centuries. Question 1: How do we know that today’s mean temperature is “normal” and what the temperature we should be altering our entire way of life in order to maintain should be? Indeed, can you point to a lengthy period of Earth’s history where the globe‘s temperature was constant and “perfect?”

2. The Earth has experienced several ice ages. An ice age is a cyclical event triggered by a lengthy decline in the earth’s temperature harsh enough to expand the polar ice sheets, continental ice sheets, and mountain glaciers. The climate change was so severe that in places where I played baseball as a kid, ice sheets were a mile or more thick. This evidence is rooted in decades of hard demonstrable geological, chemical, and paleontological science. The last ice age ended roughly 8,000 B.C. Question 2: What triggered the earth to cool so dramatically for such long periods?

3. The reason the earth has had several ice ages is because each has, at some point, ended. The earth’s atmosphere warmed over a long period of time dramatically enough to cause the massive ice fields to recede and the sprawling polar caps to break apart and melt. Question 3: What triggered the earth to warm so dramatically as to bring about the end of each major ice age?

4. Sunspots appear as dark patches on the face of the sun (some as wide as 50,000 miles) because they are cooler than the rest of the star. Sunspots contract and expand, and appear and disappear over time because of rotation of the sun. Question 4: How do sunspots affect the mean temperature on earth, and can we control the size and intensity of sunspots? If we cannot, how can altering our way of life control Earth’s mean temperature?

5. Every time a location on earth experiences a heat wave or some other natural event linked to heat (a warm winter, an early spring, etc.), major media outlets routinely comment that these events are simply more evidence that global warming is underway, and that man is the cause of the warming. California suffered a massive freeze this winter that ruined its citrus crop, upstate New York was blanketed under 11 feet of snow, and the center of the country has been frozen for weeks with record-breaking sub-zero temperatures. Question 5: Why aren’t these events mentioned by the same reporters and editorialists as evidence contradicting manmade global warming?