Читать книгу Global Warming and Other Bollocks - Stanley Feldman - Страница 31

It is reasonable to conclude that the world has warmed in the past hundred years and this has accelerated slightly between 1970 and 1998, after a cold spell in the 1940s and 1950s. This acceleration has now flattened off and there has been no significant warming since the El Niño peak of 1997; indeed, world temperatures have not increased since 1998. It is impossible to say whether this will remain within the limits of previous warm periods or whether it presages an exceptional period of global warming that will be a threat to mankind at some time in the future.

To say that it is proven that manmade CO₂ is the cause of present global warming is wrong. The evidence is, at best, equivocal. It is an unproven theory. The approximate coincidence between atmospheric temperature and CO₂ levels over many thousands of years, revealed from ice-core samples, is far from proof. A casual association falls far short of scientific evidence that is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Yet it is the main evidence offered in favour of the theory. Prophecies of the future trends in global temperatures have been exclusively based on computer models. These are essentially self-confirming expressions of the original input dogma.

The great French scientist, Claude Bernard (1813–78) complained of

minds bound and cramped by their own theories and despisers of their fellows… They make poor observations because they choose among the results of their experiments only what suits their objective, neglecting whatever is unrelated to it and setting aside everything which might tend toward the idea they wish to combat.

Good science is about being sceptical; to accept a theory without good evidence because it is presented as a ‘consensus view’ is bad science.

A single proven ice-core result demonstrating, unequivocally, that the temperature rose before the CO₂ level would constitute absolute disproof and suffice to destroy the theory. There is good evidence suggesting that this has happened. Meanwhile, the lack of any significant global warming since 1998 suggests that the prophets of an accelerating disaster, of a hockey-stick-shaped increase in global temperatures, are wrong.

We just do not know what the overall effect of the CO₂, released by man’s efforts, will have on the world’s climate; it may take many years to obtain the necessary evidence. On present evidence, it does not appear to be a cause for panic. The risk of waiting until there is more certainty is much less than the scaremongers would have us believe. There is no Armageddon waiting around the corner. The end of the world is not nigh.