Al Gore Causes Lobal Warming in Middle School Brains

This was my last Budgeteer column... on to better things.
Originally published 4/15/07

When last I wrote about the our public schools’ middle school science curriculum it was over the issue of showing a group of seventh graders Hitchcock’s horror classic “The Birds.” Apparently, not much has changed in the year and a half since then, as I recently learned that another horror film was shown, this time to a group of Proctor eighth graders.

It’s hard to decide which case is worse; frightening young students with scripted terror from a horror master, or frightening students with scripted propaganda from Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Let me be clear, I am not advocating that there have been no observable changes regarding climate patterns, nor that such changes shouldn’t be studied. It seems, however, that in light of all the observable data it behooves us to be cautious about teaching on the topic without a critical eye as to who is saying what. Showing a film, which is entirely questionable in its claims and scope, is hardly a cautious approach. Just the opposite, it is fear-mongering and foolishness; hardly what our school children deserve; need I add that no counterpoint was given?

Is there anyone who supposes that weather patterns are static, so that we will always know what the temperature will be on any given day? All one need to do is look at the historic highs and lows for any given day of the year to note that temperature fluctuates, sometimes in the extreme. Why should anyone be surprised then to note that (gasp) longer term climate patterns also fluctuate? How do we suppose we emerged from the last ice age, anyway?

Consider the moon, which has a 19 year cycle, over which phases of the moon land on the same dates of the year - almost. That means, even given 120 years of history (most locales have less) in which accurate temperature records were kept, we do not even have seven full lunar cycles of observable data. Yet Al Gore and friends want to convince us of a pending environmental disaster as if written in stone. As I recall from seventh grade science the moon has something to do with our climate. Consider, there is another lunar cycle known as its “weak periodic pattern” that repeats only about every 184 years. In other words, the data is a best incomplete; we don’t have one single weak pattern cycle of scientifically verifiable data, and yet Al Gore presumes to tell us he can see the future regarding our climate.

But what about the huge increase in carbon dioxide you ask. To which I respond, how about the 20,000 scientists, cited by Drs. E.C. Beisner, P.K. Driessen, R. McKitrick, and R.W. Spencer, in “A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor,” who have signed the following statement: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”

Furthermore, these same scientists note that the models which those who argue for global warming are seriously flawed. For instance, according the current model there should have already been a 3 to 11˚F increase in temperature, resulting from the increased levels of CO2 we are experiencing. Yet the actual temperature increase has been less than 1˚F over the last 100 years. Which begs the question, when does a new model get formulated, since the old one is demonstrably erroneous?

For all you middle school students, and certain City Councilors, who would like to be educated you may go to www.iceagenow.com for some easy read articles with links to references (I chose this particular site with middle schoolers in mind and what they would find appealing, not as a primary research site). Contrary to the many alarmist warming claims which call for increased Arctic temperatures and rising sea levels, you will find titles such as “Sea levels are falling” in the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. Other articles cite how the Antarctic ice sheet is actually growing, and the icecaps in Greenland and the Arctic are thickening, even though elsewhere there are other kinds of changes.

The best science shows a definitive correlation between current increased solar activity and the slight increase in temperatures we have seen. This data, of course, refutes the notion that man has much to do with it. I, however, would be willing to send a Congressional fact-finding delegation to the sun in order to investigate, preferably led by Al Gore.