Professional Documents
Culture Documents
July 2008
Jennifer Reynolds
English Composition 2
I’m sure you’ve heard that mankind has only a few more decades to survive. We are in
the last days and we’re happily driving our SUV’s over the cliff to our demise. Hour long
programs on the television or proclamations from blogosphere tell of impending mass extinction.
And then there’s the rise in sea level that will flood most of the world’s major cities in Katrina-
like fashion. The amber waves of grain in Kansas will disappear as the Midwest becomes the
next Saharan desert. Famines and disease will finish us off because of the coal plants required to
power our big screens for the Superbowl. The general consensus is that we’re going to hell in a
hand basket and our greedy little species has done it to ourselves.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is leading the charge to save us
from ourselves. They’ve gathered scientists from around the world and are a clearinghouse of all
studies supporting the issue of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The IPCC developed and
is the force behind the Kyoto Protocol that insists that nations make sweeping changes in
technologies, economies, industry and even culture to avert the threat. Members of the IPCC and
its supporters are motivated and sincere; I believe they are also sincerely mistaken.
The issues we’ll cover that lead me to the above conclusion are: 1) AGW is not proven to
be occurring; much less caused by man, 2) the IPCC recommended combat strategies are more
harmful to humankind then the warming itself and 3) A much greater threat to humanity exists
Deniers
Contrary to the point of view by the Nobel Laureate and Oscar winner for slideshows, Al
Gore, not every researcher is convinced of that global warming is as dire as the IPCC press
English Composition 3
A series of ten articles in the National Post by Lawrence Solomon are an excellent primer
on the deniers counter-arguments to global warming and its dire effects. The first article by
successful in refuting Michael Mann’s “hockey-stick graph” upon which the IPCC, Al Gore and
other adherents of AGW have based most of their stance. The second article by Solomon
(2007b) discusses the work of Richard S.J. Tol, lead researcher at the IPCC. He contends that
the science is far from settled and continues to call for more study. He also believes that
mankind’s ingenuity is well able to compensate for the projected changes in the environment,
Goklany (2005) is an assistant director with the U.S. Dept. of the Interior. Using the very
studies contracted by the IPCC, he explains that their recommended measures may reduce carbon
emissions and its associated warming but only by stifling economic growth and industry. The
authors research shows human lives and wellness would be impacted much more negatively by
the IPCC’s policies to fight climate change then by allowing historic economic growth and
Solomon (2008) states that the global biosphere has had explosive growth over the last
couple centuries due in no small part to post-Little Ice Age warming. He also correctly affirms
that the planets present CO2 levels are much lower than they have been many times in the past
(millions of years prior to mankind’s fossil fuel burning). He raises a concern that, if the IPCC
English Composition 4
has its way, cutting CO2 emissions could herald a cooling period that would severely reduce the
The above mentioned results of attempting to attenuate global warming would produce
conditions ripe for the actual, greatest threat to mankind. Increased food shortages and their
associated malnutrition would make millions of people more susceptible to disease. World
economies would be weakened by the financial burden of sequestering atmospheric carbon, high
taxes on fossil fuel use, cost of developing energy alternatives and the forced assembly of
entirely new infrastructures to support those alternatives. These weakened economies would
have reduced resources to address real hazards to the population. Third world countries, with
The world population, due mainly to third world countries, continues to grow beyond
experiment in Darwinism. Preston (1994) explains that mutations are constantly occurring
within microbes to improve communicability and latency; mortality is often a byproduct. The
higher those factors are, the greater the risk of a pandemic from the modified microbe. An
increase in population also increases the density of our species. This makes transmission of a
disease easier and the effects more pronounced. It is just a matter of time until a microbe
emerges that has easy communicability, long latency and high mortality. When that happens, a
pandemic will spread like a wildfire through the human race. It is inevitable and there is nothing
we can do to stop it, but we can apply the resources to prepare for it, to minimize its effects.
English Composition 5
Conclusion
There are so many scientists supporting it and such coverage in the media on AGW, how
could they all be wrong? Consider that news media is a “for profit” business and creating a
market is just capitalism at work. Human psychology predicates that we pay attention to new
stimulus and the sensational sells papers and ad time; humans are motivated by crisis. As far as
science, though it is based on the unbiased search for facts, it is still practiced by fallible human
beings. University and governmental funding for research is granted based on priorities. Public
opinion affects those institutions priorities and the media affects public opinion. The more
exciting research that’s accomplished, the more news stories are generated. A feedback loop (or
feeding frenzy, if you will) ensues. The same doomsday loop occurred thirty-five years ago as
the example article by Gwynne (1975) illustrates. The weight of scientific research at the time
predicted global cooling and was the rage in the media for at least five years. This never
Like the phantom menaces of the past (global cooling, Y2K, the red scare, etc.) global
warming will also become blasé and we’ll move on to a new crisis. My concern is that we will
waste our resources on a dead end and not be able to meet the real challenge when it appears.
More so, the proposed actions to combat global warming will actually increase the likelihood
References
Robinson, A., Robinson, N., & Soon, W. (2007). Environmental Effects of Increased
Solomon, L. (2007a, February 02). Deniers Part 1: Statistics needed. National Post. Retrieved
Solomon, L. (2007b, February 02). Deniers Part 5: The original denier: into the cold. National
Solomon, L. (2008, June 7). In praise of CO2. Financial Post. Retrieved June 13, 2008, from
www.financialpost.com