Hysteria and half-truths behind global warming obscure reality by Josh Miller

June 23, 1988 is a day that should live in infamy. Nobody made war upon anybody else. No assassin murdered a head-of-state, no famous celebrity or great religious leader died. But, on June 23, 1988, NASA scientist James E. Hansen spawned a hysteria that quickly spread across our nation. On June 23, 1988, Hansen testified before Congress that "global warming is now sufficiently large that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect." Environmentalists were elated, reputable scientists were appalled, and journalists were confused, but faithfully filed their stories about Hansen's predictions of environmental catastrophe. As a result, the Popular Vision of global warming was created. The Popular Vision is the label reputable climatologists have given Hansen's June 23 testimony and the misconceptions about global warming that his testimony popularized. The Popular Vision was spawned out of a fear of an impending yet non-existent doom, excessive guilt over industrial progress, and increased susceptibility to all environmental propaganda on the part of the public. The Popular Vision predicts a rapid warming of the planet of around 7°F that will melt the arctic ice flows and cause a rise in sea level of perhaps 25 feet, daytime temperatures that will regularly exceed 100°F and kill crops, and cause global war for the Earth's remaining resources. The hysteria spread quickly, and, on June 25, CNN released a nationwide poll which showed that 70% of respondents believed that the greenhouse effect was causing the midwest drought. When James Hansen testified before Congress, he depicted the Popular Vision of global warming as indisputable fact. He cited planetary warming in the past century of between 1.0°F and 1.3°F. Later, Hansen revealed that he had derived these figures by subtracting the mean value of the first ten years of his data from the mean value of the last ten years which means he had used a peculiar scientific procedure of tossing out 80% of his data to determine his results. You and I call this "bending the truth." Hansen even brought along a neat little chart for the television cameras that seemed to show a sudden dramatic increase in global temperature in 1988. Of course, Hansen forgot to mention that the dramatic temperature increase of 1988 appeared on his chart because his graph of average yearly temperature compared yearly averages with a five month average of 1988. Seven months later, the complete yearly data showed no significant evidence of global warming in 1988. As climatologist Patrick J. Michaels noted, Hansen's chart "mixed scientific apples and oranges." Patrick J. Michaels, the state climatologist of Virginia, debunked the Popular Vision in his book Sound and Fury: the Science and Politics of Global Warming. In it, Michaels presents statistical evidence that punches holes in the Popular Vision large enough for a semi to drive through. He also reaches several interesting conclusions about our planet's future himself. First, Michaels predicts that the temperature will appear to significantly warm because as the Earth's population increases, more people will surround the weather stations that take temperature readings and skew their results as buildings, bricks, pavements, and people all retain heat. Thus, Hansen and his like will claim that significant global warming has occurred when in reality we have only experienced a population increase. Second, Michaels predicts that the planet itself will warm, but only slightly. Cloud enhancers such as sulfate aerosol will prevent warming of more than 1°F. And third, Michaels predicts that this modest warming will produce "longer growing seasons, summer temperatures that do not change much..., warmer nights, not much change in day temperatures, and a greener planet." Many scientists support Michaels' predictions. Yet the Popular Vision still endures, and popular hysteria continues to spread. Michaels borrows the title of his book from act V of Macbeth: "It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing," an appropriate description of the Popular Vision and an allusion that we will fully understand only when we purge ourselves of popular hysteria that is all too present in the mass media. We must abandon our desire to believe without question "science by sound bite" and cynical predictions of a sun-scorched Earth. Again, Shakespeare puts it more succinctly: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves."

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