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Four Reasons Alarmists Are Wrong on Climate Change

by Vijay Jayaraj

May 7, 2018

Earth Day this year focused officially on the need to reduce plastic litter, a worthy and achievable goal. Nonetheless, much Earth Day activity concentrated on the alleged need to save the planet from climate change.

Climate-change alarmists have long called the current warming period “unprecedented” and “dangerous.” But is it?

Ironically, this Earth Day fell in the midst of one of the coldest Aprils in North American history. The severe winter of 2017–2018 has raised debates from two contrasting ends.

While some uninformed people claim it disproves global warming, climate alarmists claim it is just another evidence for global warming.

Deniers, Alarmists and Skeptics

Actual climate-change deniers—and they are very few—categorically deny the warming trend. On the other end of the spectrum are climate-change alarmists, who claim that the current warming trend is catastrophic and driven almost exclusively by emissions of carbon dioxide from human activities, especially industrialization.

Skeptics Are Not Deniers

Scientific progress depends on the freedom to challenge existing hypotheses. Surprisingly, though, anyone who disagrees with climate-change alarmists is branded a “denier.”

That is very misleading. Most well-known skeptics disagree on the magnitude and cause of warming, but not on whether it’s happening; and they also disagree about the consequences of warming and how mankind should respond.

Real climate-change deniers should be called out. They are as dangerous as climate-change alarmists, who impede scientific advancement and lead the masses into believing extreme theories using scare tactics.

Both climate-change deniers and climate-change alarmists are wrong on their claims about the implications of this winter and how they interpret the behaviour of the earth’s climatic system over the past 2000 years. Here are four reasons why:

  1. Global warming is real. Scientists disagree only on its magnitude and causes and how we should respond to it.

Four major temperature data sets are available to us: historical data inferred from proxy temperature measurements (primarily tree-rings and ice cores), global mean surface temperature data from thermometers (measured since the 1880s), radiosonde (weather balloon) temperature measurements (first used in 1896 but not common until the 1950s), and temperature data gathered by satellites (since the 1970s).

Temperature measurements from these sources indicate that the earth has, with fluctuations, generally been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age (roughly 1350–1850).

Skeptics differ from alarmists on the primary cause for this warming (a subject to which I’ll return below), its magnitude, the supposed dangers it might bring, and how to respond.

  1. Human emissions of carbon dioxide are one of many causes are of global warming, but they’re not the primary driver.

Climate data from the past contradict the alarmist’s claims that carbon dioxide emissions from human activity have been the primary drivers of global temperatures.

Data show that the current warming is not unprecedented but was matched by the Roman Warm Period (roughly 250–400) and Medieval Warm Period (roughly 950–1250).

During those periods, carbon dioxide emissions from human activity were negligible compared to today’s levels. It follows that warming of the magnitude of the last 150 years or more can happen with or without human contribution.

Further, no conclusive evidence shows that the current warming has been exaggerated by human emissions.

  1. Carbon dioxide emission from human activity has actually failed to cause substantial increase in global temperatures.

Climate alarmists, relying on computer climate models, predicted that the earth’s temperature would increase rapidly (typical predictions calling for about 0.3ºC of warming per decade) over the past two decades. Their forecasts proved to be wrong. Global average temperature failed to rise significantly during the past 18 years, despite a record increase in carbon dioxide emissions, and its average rate since the end of the 1970s has been only about half what the models simulate.

In other words, the models exaggerate the impact of human carbon dioxide emissions on the temperature.

This pivotal failure in scientific understanding (of how carbon dioxide influences temperature) was acknowledged by even the staunchest climate alarmists.

This was more recently confirmed by hundreds of scientific papers that attribute the recent warming to natural causes and affirm that there is nothing abnormal with the climate.

  1. Record highs don’t prove extreme global warming.

An increasing number of record highs does not prove or disprove catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. They are merely changes in temperature within a larger climatic period.

It’s no surprise that local record highs become more common during a warming period. The mercury has been rising since the end of the Little Ice Age, so it is nearly inevitable that new records will be set each year. The records are indeed one evidence of warming, but they’re no evidence of its cause.

More importantly, the record highs apply only to the modern measurement era, after widespread temperature measurements began in the 1870s for much of the developed world and not until the mid-1900s for much of the rest of the world. They don’t include the similar phases of steep temperature increases that would have occurred during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period.

The alarmists’ attitude towards climate change will prove more harmful than beneficial in the long run. Insofar as they prevail, we will become more and more unprepared to face any climatic condition that is contrary to their dubious theories of unprecedented warming.

Moreover, their demonizing of skeptics impedes our understanding of the climatic system by disrupting the critical thinking indispensable to the progress of scientific knowledge.

The current winter does not disprove global warming. But it does disprove the alarmist narrative.

The article was originally published on Master Resource.

Dated: May 7, 2018

Tagged With: Carbon Dioxide, Climate Change, CO2, Earth Day, Global Warming, Master Resource, Medieval Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, Vijay Jayaraj
Filed Under: Bridging Humanity and the Environment, Climate & Energy

About Vijay Jayaraj

Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, VA and writes frequently for the Cornwall Alliance. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK, and resides in India.

Comments

  1. Douglas E Fox says

    May 8, 2018 at 6:07 pm

    Wow! Here is a succinct scientific statement that puts all the pieces of the puzzle together in about 1 or 2 pages of text. It is really important to get all the words and the categories right, and this little paper from Vijay Jayaraj does just that and straightens everything out. Is it asking the American Public too much to have them read a document like this? Clarity and brevity are what we have here and that is just what is needed.

    Reply
    • Vijay Raj Jayaraj says

      May 9, 2018 at 2:32 pm

      Thank you Douglas E Fox. Most of the Public do not read articles that are more than 600 words long or say one page. So I have tried to make this as short as possible. Hopefully many will read it.

      Reply
  2. Donald P. Galamaga says

    May 12, 2018 at 6:49 pm

    Are you dis-agreeing with Joe Bastardi’s new book, which indicates that we are in a period of cooling on the East Coast caused by changes in upper air weather patterns and other things, He see this tendency until about 2023 or so. What do you mean by “warming?”. What temperature range differences from what standard?

    Reply
    • Vijay Raj Jayaraj says

      May 14, 2018 at 3:31 pm

      Hello Donald,
      I haven’t had a chance to read Joe Bastardi’s new book, but will read it soon. Regardless, I don’t see any possible reasons why I would disagree with his diagnosis about East Coast cooling.
      When I use the word ‘warming’, I am denoting a deviation from average temperatures. I do not presuppose it to be a warming caused by human emissions of CO2. Rather, I mean the warming of Atmospheric and Surface temperature due to various causes (natural cycle, solar minimums, other climatic factors). The impact of humans on climate is very minimal and insignificant. Human emissions do not have the power to alter the overall temperature pattern. The world has been warming ever since the little ice age and so indeed our world is warming, but not at the rate or magnitude suggested by IPCC and UNFCCC.
      I hope I answered your question on what I mean by Warming.
      Regarding temperature standard – I didn’t understand your question. But I will try to put it this way – it is very difficult to quantify what is the standard temperature. Temperatures oscillate with the impact of sun and other conditions. Sometimes, we do an average of 100 years and say that this average is the standard temperature range. And any deviation from it would be a anomaly, ie warming or cooling. If we are to consider the average of 2000 years, our current warm period is no rocket science. We have had similar warming in the past. And no one can stop the little ice age if it is on the way.

      Reply
  3. Andy Doerksen says

    September 19, 2018 at 12:50 am

    Nothing particularly objectionable in the article itself – but hasn’t the CA normally eschewed the very assertion that global warming is a “thing”?

    I’d also be interested in hearing Vijay’s response to the common CA (and others’) contention that there’s been a global-temp flatline for the past 18 years or so.

    Reply
    • Vijay Raj Jayaraj says

      September 19, 2018 at 3:00 am

      Hey Andy, Thanks for the questions. I don’t think there is anyone in CA who believes that there is a global-temp flatline! CA’s Roy Spencer is an acclaimed Climatologist and there is no way anyone in CA can believe in a flat line. Maybe a stagnant warming rate – Yes, but not a flat line. Almost all at CA know about the Little Ice Age in 17th century and the upward progression of Temperatures since then. CA’s articles repeatedly suggest there is no ‘significant’ warming/warming to the range that was projected by the alarmists and mainstream leftist media. There has definitely been a slowdown in the warming rate during the past 18 years and I am so surprised that the alarmists and leftist media are so happily ignoring the glaring mismatch between CO2 emission increase and the rate of increase in temperature. CA, in my opinion, has always stayed true to the actual climate science.

      Reply

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