100 Reasons Climate Change May Be Natural, Not Man-Made

From the UK's Daily Express:

Tuesday December 15,2009

By Dan Parkinson
HERE are the 100 reasons, released in a dossier issued by the European Foundation, why climate change is natural and not man-made:

1) There is “no real scientific proof” that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man’s activity.

2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.

3) Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.

4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.

5) Throughout the Earth’s history, temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been higher – more than ten times as high.

6) Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time.

7) The 0.7C increase in the average global temperature over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.

8) The IPCC theory is driven by just 60 scientists and favourable reviewers not the 4,000 usually cited.

9) Leaked e-mails from British climate scientists – in a scandal known as “Climate-gate” - suggest that that has been manipulated to exaggerate global warming

10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.

11) Politicians and activiists claim rising sea levels are a direct cause of global warming but sea levels rates have been increasing steadily since the last ice age 10,000 ago

12) Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London says climate change is too complicated to be caused by just one factor, whether CO2 or clouds

13) Peter Lilley MP said last month that “fewer people in Britain than in any other country believe in the importance of global warming. That is despite the fact that our Government and our political class—predominantly—are more committed to it than their counterparts in any other country in the world”.

14) In pursuit of the global warming rhetoric, wind farms will do very little to nothing to reduce CO2 emissions

15) Professor Plimer, Professor of Geology and Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide, stated that the idea of taking a single trace gas in the atmosphere, accusing it and finding it guilty of total responsibility for climate change, is an “absurdity”

16) A Harvard University astrophysicist and geophysicist, Willie Soon, said he is “embarrassed and puzzled” by the shallow science in papers that support the proposition that the earth faces a climate crisis caused by global warming.

17) The science of what determines the earth’s temperature is in fact far from settled or understood.

18) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas, unlike water vapour which is tied to climate concerns, and which we can’t even pretend to control

19) A petition by scientists trying to tell the world that the political and media portrayal of global warming is false was put forward in the Heidelberg Appeal in 1992. Today, more than 4,000 signatories, including 72 Nobel Prize winners, from 106 countries have signed it.

20) It is claimed the average global temperature increased at a dangerously fast rate in the 20th century but the recent rate of average global temperature rise has been between 1 and 2 degrees C per century - within natural rates

To read more click here.

Dominion over the Earth

I consider myself a bit of a naturalist; a field biologist/ornithologist of sorts. I love, appreciate, and I’m deeply intrigued by what can be discovered in nature. True to the Boy Scout Outdoor Code, I am considerate in the outdoors and I am conservation minded. Few things anger me as much as finding litter in the wild. People who pollute piss me off.

Incongruous as it may seem, I am also an employee of one of the big evil developers/builders that is plundering the foothills north of Boise and Eagle. My father is a home builder too, so my entirely livelihood has been dependent upon a vibrant and growing community…which necessitates the destruction of natural habitat so that we can build homes, make money, and eat.

How can I live with myself with all of that internal conflict? Easy! I don’t believe the media and I know the measure of my creation.

God commanded Adam and Eve to “subdue” the earth and “have dominion” over all that is on the earth (Genesis 1). Interesting words! If we are to “subdue” the earth…that means we should conquer it, put it into submission, and cultivate it (Merriam-Webster online). That implies that the earth is in some sort of wild state which needs subduing. That flies in the face of the environmentalists and no-growthers. Unfortunately, most of those people don’t really believe in the Bible or in God and my premise wouldn’t be accepted in a debate with them.

Some scientists and crazy political/actor environmentalists have been telling us that the climate is worsening and that all kinds of species, including humans, are going to become extinct. My question is…Who determined the baseline measures for the ideal climate and quantity of species? Do we really know if things are getting worse? Worse compared to what?

I am an avid birder. Several times a week I make a tally of the bird species I identify in as I hike along rivers, lakes, woods, desert, wherever I am really. I submit my findings to http://www.ebird.org/ which is operated by Cornell University and is being used to aid the science of bird range and migration. What a great tool to measure with! But it has only been around for a few years. Too bad Adam and Eve didn’t have eBird, and then we would have had a truer baseline measurement! But even then, God intended mankind to subdue the earth, which necessitates changing the natural wild and unruly state of things. What a sacred responsibility we have to care for and tend our beautiful garden.

I do not deny that many of my fellow human beings have abused and polluted this planet and have tragically wiped out certain species of plants and animals. I support research and development of technology that would help us be more kind to our planet (just not funded or mandated by government). Thankfully, nature is more resilient than anything else I know of.

It is my dream to buy a huge, perhaps previously abused, tract of land and make a birding and wildlife paradise of it. Perhaps I would be creating too much good nesting habitat and the population of Black-capped Chickadees and House Wrens would become a problem and Idaho Fish and Game would make me start thinning the flocks to meet their standard of what ideal population numbers would be.

As developers, we go to extraordinary efforts and expense to conserve wetlands, revegetate cattle-trodden land, increase riparian and wildlife corridors, and be energy and water efficient. We do it because it is the right thing to do…and of course because you the homeowners are really the ones that pay for it! I’m excited to see what new animals and birds we draw into our project because of our restoration and enhancement efforts. (Check out our website at http://www.avimor.com/)

Where we live in Idaho, it is a desert. As mankind has flowed into and developed the Treasure Valley, there have been incredible increases in the number of trees, plants, and riparian habitat. I am convinced that there are more varieties of birds here now than there were when Lewis and Clark passed through this state. Environmentalists would perhaps see this as a victory…yet if we use some arbitrary baseline measure, how do we know if it is really good or really bad???

Something that I hope most people can relate to is the internal sense of joy and peace that one feels as they plant a flower, raise a garden, clear a hiking trail in the mountains, or construct a building. When those things are done with honor for our stewardship, then we can rest assured that we are doing right by God and by the earth.