2008 Woodie Awards
Renewable energy ideas need to supersede quarreling theories among experts
Michael Roberts
Issue date: 3/18/08 Section: Opinion
Al Gore makes a movie, wins a Nobel Prize, and suddenly global warming and climate change are taken as being fact by the mainstream media.
New data argues against the idea of global warming though, showing that in the past year the earth has actually been in a cooling trend rather than a warming one. This is both interesting and dangerous data: it brings global warming back up for discussion and may question people's devotion to the idea of "going green," something that is more vital to America than most see.
The newest data from the United Kingdom's Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature says that the average global temperature has dropped by .595 degrees Celsius. This drops the global temperature back down to levels that it was at during the 1980s.
Other studies being released show the same drop off in temperature for the 2007 calendar year, some a little less dramatic around the .5-.4 range.
As far as actual results that you can observe, Baghdad experienced its first snow in the past 100 years. If the global temperature were to drop another .5 degrees Celsius, we would be back to the point that is known as the "little ice age" of the 19th century.
This does not necessarily mean that global warming doesn't exist though. This could just be the opposite of what we experienced in 1998 with the El Nino effect.
The El Nino of 1998 made that year one of the hottest on record, an equally as strong La Nina effect could bring the temperatures down to this level. Some scientists have also argued that it's increasingly possible that the sun plays a much bigger factor in the temperature of the earth than we previously thought.
With the new label of "climate change" though, people can argue that the past year was just an anomaly and that we will return to global warming form in the upcoming years. That's the beauty of the term "climate change" if you are an advocate. It is so ambiguous that it fits just about any situation that you would like to use it.
New data argues against the idea of global warming though, showing that in the past year the earth has actually been in a cooling trend rather than a warming one. This is both interesting and dangerous data: it brings global warming back up for discussion and may question people's devotion to the idea of "going green," something that is more vital to America than most see.
The newest data from the United Kingdom's Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature says that the average global temperature has dropped by .595 degrees Celsius. This drops the global temperature back down to levels that it was at during the 1980s.
Other studies being released show the same drop off in temperature for the 2007 calendar year, some a little less dramatic around the .5-.4 range.
As far as actual results that you can observe, Baghdad experienced its first snow in the past 100 years. If the global temperature were to drop another .5 degrees Celsius, we would be back to the point that is known as the "little ice age" of the 19th century.
This does not necessarily mean that global warming doesn't exist though. This could just be the opposite of what we experienced in 1998 with the El Nino effect.
The El Nino of 1998 made that year one of the hottest on record, an equally as strong La Nina effect could bring the temperatures down to this level. Some scientists have also argued that it's increasingly possible that the sun plays a much bigger factor in the temperature of the earth than we previously thought.
With the new label of "climate change" though, people can argue that the past year was just an anomaly and that we will return to global warming form in the upcoming years. That's the beauty of the term "climate change" if you are an advocate. It is so ambiguous that it fits just about any situation that you would like to use it.
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