Global Warming: What Is the Truth?
According to Bruce Gorley's report entitled, "Climate Change: Your Guide to the Greatest Challenge Now Facing Planet Earth," (2007), the Earth has heated up by one degree Fahrenheit in the past century.
More alarmingly, the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) report concludes that in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia, average temperatures have increased as much as 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 4 degrees Celsius) in the past 50 years.
What about Mongolia? Has Mongolia noticed any climate change in recent years? Clyde E.
Goulden is the director of the Institute of Mongolian Biodiversity and Ecological Studies at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
He wrote for the New York Times, "From 2002 to 2006, we began to recognize how much the climate of this region was changing.
The whole-country analysis of temperature records indicated that Mongolia has warmed 2.
14 degrees Celsius, or 3.
85 degrees Fahrenheit, since the 1940s.
" Despite the overwhelming evidence of global warming, there have been conspiracy theorists, who seem to think that the whole global-warming issue is a hoax.
Remember "Climate Gate" of November 2009? Thousands of e-mails were hacked exposing an alleged plot to falsify data in favour of man-made global warming and suppress data that didn't fit the pattern.
It placed a lot of doubt in the minds of many about the veracity of global warming claims.
Yet, reporter Jess Henig reported in December of 2009 the following: "Climate change sceptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming.
We find that to be unfounded.
" Mr.
Henig continues, "Many of the e-mails that are being held up as 'smoking guns' have been misrepresented by global-warming skeptics eager to find evidence of a conspiracy.
And even if they showed what the critics claim, there remains ample evidence that the earth is getting warmer.
" Clearly, there is no doubt in any scientist's mind that the earth is warming.
The main questions are: To what extent are humans to blame? And what can we do about it? Incredibly, there are those who claim that global warming has very little to do with human activity on the planet.
Evidence for this claim comes from other planets and moons in our solar system.
Evidently, they are warming as well.
Take, for instance, Triton, the largest moon of the planet Neptune.
In 1998, Professor James Elliot at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reported, "At least since 1989, Triton has been undergoing a period of global warming.
" Mr.
Elliot's team has found that Triton's temperature has increased 22 degrees Fahrenheit in just nine years.
Furthermore, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) has a website, whereupon it was reported on August 7, 2003 that the polar ice caps on Mars are shrinking.
Such findings lead scientists to believe that global-warming is a solar-system-wide phenomenon.
Unless there are humans driving Sports-Utility Vehicles (SUVs) on Triton or Mars, it is really hard to make a case for man-made global-warming.
Yet, does that absolve us from doing what we can to stint global-warming? Former USA Vice President Al Gore thinks not.
He thinks we should reduce our carbon emissions.
He also thinks that the best way to make people reduce their carbon emissions is by taxing them.
He would like to have a carbon-tax instituted, which would tax the use of carbon-dioxide producing fuels.
"A gradually-rising carbon tax would also yield gradually increasing revenues, helping to close the deficit while working better (at lower cost and more broadly) than any other policy to reduce global warming pollution.
One particularly stimulative way to use carbon tax revenue would be to fund and expand the payroll tax holiday," reported James Handley of the Carbon Tax Center, 2012.
Sounds good, however, there are many who are vehemently against carbon taxes of any kind.
One such sceptic is Paul Joseph Watson of Prison Planet dot com and InfoWars News.
He wrote an article entitled, "Al Gore set to become the world's first Carbon Billionaire" in 2009, wherein he wrote, "The New York Times' John M.
Broder does reveal how one of the companies Gore invested in, Silver Spring Networks, recently received a contract worth $560 million dollars from the Energy Department to install smart meters in people's homes that record (and critics fear could eventually regulate) energy usage.
'Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr.
Gore is poised to become the world's first carbon billionaire, profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in,' writes Broder.
" Despite the fact that some entrepreneurs wish to capitalize on the transition from fossil fuels to clean fuels, the data really does seem to support the idea that the globe is heating up.
However, before we go and follow people like Al Gore, one must ask the question: just how serious of a predicament are we in? An article by Doyle Rice, in USA TODAY, May 21, 2009 reported, "Global warming will be twice as severe as previous estimates indicate, according to a new study published this month in the Journal of Climate, a publication of the American Meteorological Society.
The research, conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), predicts a 90% probability that worldwide surface temperatures will rise more than 9 degrees (F) by 2100, compared to a previous 2003 MIT study that forecast a rise of just over 4 degrees.
" Then, on November 25, 2011, Lewis Page reported that the whole global-warming thing has been over hyped.
He wrote, "Climate scientists funded by the US government have announced new research in which they have established that the various doomsday global warming scenarios are in fact extremely unlikely to occur, and that the scenarios considered likeliest - and used for planning by the world's governments - are overly pessimistic.
" So, what's the truth about global-warming? I guess we'll never know for sure.
More alarmingly, the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) report concludes that in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia, average temperatures have increased as much as 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 4 degrees Celsius) in the past 50 years.
What about Mongolia? Has Mongolia noticed any climate change in recent years? Clyde E.
Goulden is the director of the Institute of Mongolian Biodiversity and Ecological Studies at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
He wrote for the New York Times, "From 2002 to 2006, we began to recognize how much the climate of this region was changing.
The whole-country analysis of temperature records indicated that Mongolia has warmed 2.
14 degrees Celsius, or 3.
85 degrees Fahrenheit, since the 1940s.
" Despite the overwhelming evidence of global warming, there have been conspiracy theorists, who seem to think that the whole global-warming issue is a hoax.
Remember "Climate Gate" of November 2009? Thousands of e-mails were hacked exposing an alleged plot to falsify data in favour of man-made global warming and suppress data that didn't fit the pattern.
It placed a lot of doubt in the minds of many about the veracity of global warming claims.
Yet, reporter Jess Henig reported in December of 2009 the following: "Climate change sceptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming.
We find that to be unfounded.
" Mr.
Henig continues, "Many of the e-mails that are being held up as 'smoking guns' have been misrepresented by global-warming skeptics eager to find evidence of a conspiracy.
And even if they showed what the critics claim, there remains ample evidence that the earth is getting warmer.
" Clearly, there is no doubt in any scientist's mind that the earth is warming.
The main questions are: To what extent are humans to blame? And what can we do about it? Incredibly, there are those who claim that global warming has very little to do with human activity on the planet.
Evidence for this claim comes from other planets and moons in our solar system.
Evidently, they are warming as well.
Take, for instance, Triton, the largest moon of the planet Neptune.
In 1998, Professor James Elliot at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reported, "At least since 1989, Triton has been undergoing a period of global warming.
" Mr.
Elliot's team has found that Triton's temperature has increased 22 degrees Fahrenheit in just nine years.
Furthermore, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) has a website, whereupon it was reported on August 7, 2003 that the polar ice caps on Mars are shrinking.
Such findings lead scientists to believe that global-warming is a solar-system-wide phenomenon.
Unless there are humans driving Sports-Utility Vehicles (SUVs) on Triton or Mars, it is really hard to make a case for man-made global-warming.
Yet, does that absolve us from doing what we can to stint global-warming? Former USA Vice President Al Gore thinks not.
He thinks we should reduce our carbon emissions.
He also thinks that the best way to make people reduce their carbon emissions is by taxing them.
He would like to have a carbon-tax instituted, which would tax the use of carbon-dioxide producing fuels.
"A gradually-rising carbon tax would also yield gradually increasing revenues, helping to close the deficit while working better (at lower cost and more broadly) than any other policy to reduce global warming pollution.
One particularly stimulative way to use carbon tax revenue would be to fund and expand the payroll tax holiday," reported James Handley of the Carbon Tax Center, 2012.
Sounds good, however, there are many who are vehemently against carbon taxes of any kind.
One such sceptic is Paul Joseph Watson of Prison Planet dot com and InfoWars News.
He wrote an article entitled, "Al Gore set to become the world's first Carbon Billionaire" in 2009, wherein he wrote, "The New York Times' John M.
Broder does reveal how one of the companies Gore invested in, Silver Spring Networks, recently received a contract worth $560 million dollars from the Energy Department to install smart meters in people's homes that record (and critics fear could eventually regulate) energy usage.
'Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr.
Gore is poised to become the world's first carbon billionaire, profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in,' writes Broder.
" Despite the fact that some entrepreneurs wish to capitalize on the transition from fossil fuels to clean fuels, the data really does seem to support the idea that the globe is heating up.
However, before we go and follow people like Al Gore, one must ask the question: just how serious of a predicament are we in? An article by Doyle Rice, in USA TODAY, May 21, 2009 reported, "Global warming will be twice as severe as previous estimates indicate, according to a new study published this month in the Journal of Climate, a publication of the American Meteorological Society.
The research, conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), predicts a 90% probability that worldwide surface temperatures will rise more than 9 degrees (F) by 2100, compared to a previous 2003 MIT study that forecast a rise of just over 4 degrees.
" Then, on November 25, 2011, Lewis Page reported that the whole global-warming thing has been over hyped.
He wrote, "Climate scientists funded by the US government have announced new research in which they have established that the various doomsday global warming scenarios are in fact extremely unlikely to occur, and that the scenarios considered likeliest - and used for planning by the world's governments - are overly pessimistic.
" So, what's the truth about global-warming? I guess we'll never know for sure.
