Newsmax.com | Philip V. Brennan | Dec. 11, 2007
As much of the U.S. is being blasted by vicious ice storms, a blockbuster report published in a prestigious scientific journal insists that the evidence shows that climate warming is both natural and unstoppable and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant.
Writing in the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society, professor David H. Douglass (of the University of Rochester), professor John R. Christy (of the University of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson and professor S. Fred Singer (of the University of Virginia) report that observed patterns of temperature changes (“fingerprints”) over the last 30 years disagree with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability.
The conclusion is that climate change is “unstoppable” and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.
According to Dr. Douglass: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”
One of his co-authors, Dr. John Christy, added: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater.
“We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”
And the third co-author, Dr. S. Fred Singer, said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals.
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Why does the Orthodox Church have to support climate sceptics? What’s the deal here?!
Dave, Orthodox support truth wherever we find it. The reality is that many of the scientists attribute any warming trend to the effects of the sun and the cloud cover (90-95%). The truth is that carbon dioxide, a colorless and odorless gas makes up only 0.037% of our atmosphere and human activity only accounts for a fraction of even that. CO2 caused by humans is not what’s causing the warming.
By the way have you looked at NASA’s temperature graph that shows the warming to have peaked and stopped in 1998 or the revised graph showing warming trends were more pronounced in the 1930’s. How is that possible if CO2 levels have continued to rise? Basic scientific reasoning and logic therefore indicate that CO2 is NOT causing the warming.
For those interested in verifying my comments about NASA’s own data and the revised temperation information updated on September 10, 2007 here’s the direct link to NASA’s GISS graphs: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
Jim and Dave, there is nothing more profoundly theological than our interaction and attitude to the visible creation. Even a dull-witted, cursory reading of the Psalms or the Letters of St. Paul reveals that.
The Orthodox Church has been entrusted with safe-guarding, articulating and living the fullness of the Gospel.
When God commands us to dress and keep the earth, that means we have a responsibility to Him to see that it is done in accordance with what He would want. That command and its attendant repsosibility is part of the fullness of the
Gospel. The very fact that Dave can ask what difference it makes to Orthodox and Jim considers care of the creation tangential only shows how poor a job we Orthodox have done.
We cannot allow materialist philosophy and anti-human ideologies to go unchallenged. Unfortunately, materialism and anti-humanism dominate the environmentlist activist agenda. It all comes down to money and power.