I felt compelled to go off topic today.  I’ll return to money and investing tomorrow.  (In any event, this topic is actually business and investing-related, so it might not be much of a stretch.)

We have been hearing a lot about global warming and man’s alleged contribution to an accelerated increase in global temperatures.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, Al Gore announced that he is launching a $300 million campaign to push global warming higher into the nation’s political agenda.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle have embraced this perceived problem, and the general population seems to agree that global warming exists and that we need to practice conservation, look for alternative sources of energy, and, most important, turn the problem over to the government.

My question with all this is the following: Is man-made global warming a lie?

The Sacrifice of Individual, Democratic Thought

This question needs to be asked.  And there is a good reason for asking it.

I fear that Americans are marching lockstep to this “global warming” tune without questioning whether it is, indeed, happening.  Millions of people ignored the stronger causal connection between cigarettes and lung cancer for years, and yet they embrace this man-made global warming hysteria without hesitation. 

People who follow an agenda blindly and who don’t question the bases for that agenda and its beliefs sacrifice individual thought.  They give up control to big government and hope that it can solve the problem for them.  Doesn’t this sound like a collective, socialist religion to you?  When Kofi Annan (a couple of years ago) claims that global warming is such a serious problem that countries need to give up some of their sovereignty to the United Nations so that the UN can fix the problem, doesn’t that raise some eyebrows? 

Effect on Business 

The problem and the cause of global warming–in Annan’s view and in the view of others who believe in joining forces with the UN to fix this issue–is the U.S. economy. 

Remember that the U.S. has one of the last successful, democratic, capitalist economies in the world.  Yet this global warming movement is demanding that we give up some of the basic tenets of capitalism to an organization comprised of (mostly) communist and socialist nations and dictators?  What is wrong with this picture?  

On a more local level, think about it this way: When people become robots in this manner, I worry about our ability to grow and prosper as a nation.  Movements like global warming create mind-numbed robots who go to work, go home, and agree with everything they read and hear.  These people don’t ask questions.  They don’t innovate.  They don’t imagine. 

These movements prevent the emergence of unique, independent entrepreneurs who question ideas and probe them and think for themselves.  Independent thought is essential to maintaining free markets, and a free market economy is the best path towards future prosperity.  When the notion of man-made global warming arises, it’s healthy to examine it and question it from all angles.  If it does exist, these questions and analyses will only make the theory stronger and more compelling.  The lack of probing creates the risk that the U.S. will unilaterally shape its policy and sacrifice some of its soveriegnty based on a shaky, unproven scientific theory.  That is dangerous.

Problems With Global Warming Consensus

To prove my point about the shakiness of this global warming movement, let’s look at some facts.  Recently, I watched a well-respected documentary called The Great Global Warming Swindle (DVD).  According to the documentary, here are just a few of the problems and issues with the global warming “theory”:

  • According to ice core samples from the Antarctic, the rise in carbon dioxide levels is 800 years behind the rise in global temperatures.  Thus, carbon dioxide levels cannot be the cause of the temperature rise.  (Someone should tell Al Gore since his film An Inconvenient Truth apparently reverses these figures to claim that carbon dioxide levels are causing a rise in global temperatures.)
  • The amount of carbon dioxide humans have contributed to the atmosphere is minimal when compared to other natural means like volcanic emissions and carbon dioxide produced by animals, bacteria, decaying vegetation, and the ocean.  (So do all these other sources of carbon dioxide outweigh our ”carbon footprint”?  Are we really not the global warming catalysts we’re portrayed to be?)
  • Solar activity (sun spots and solar radiation) almost match temperature changes on Earth over the last century.  For example, the increase of cosmic rays produced by the Sun prevents the formation of clouds here on Earth, which apparently has a cooling effect on the planet, and, in turn, leads to a rise in temperatures.  (You mean that, if the Sun gets hotter, the Earth gets hotter, too?  What a radical thought.)

Newspaper Headlines

Just for comic effect, let’s look at how the media (which many people trust so dearly) has reported on the issue of global warming and global temperatures.  Look at these four New York Times headlines from the past 85 years:

  • September 18, 1924: “MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age”
  • March 27, 1933: “America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-Year Rise”
  • May 21, 1975: “Scientists Ponder Why World’s Climate is Changing; A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable”
  • December 27, 2005: “Past Hot Times Hold Few Reasons to Relax About New Warming”

So in 1924, we’re looking at a new ice age, and then nine years later (in 1933) we get word of global warming?  How is that possible?  Does the media just focus on hysteria and crisis?  

Remember that newspapers need to sell, and stories about global epidemics sell better than your run-of-the-mill news story.  So take everything you read in a newspaper with a grain of salt. 

The reality here is that we can’t possibly know for sure whether whether global warming is happening at all or whether the opposite–global cooling–is occurring.  A lot of it, based on temperatures from around the world, just doesn’t make sense, and the evidence is all over the place.  Don’t doubt for a moment that this global warming hysteria is just someone else’s agenda, and that a willing and able media advances it because it helps sell newspapers and get ratings on television. 

Global warming should be an issue that is debated and examined in a forum where an open exchange of ideas is welcomed.  And those who question its existence shouldn’t be chastised or brandished as “global warming deniers.”  Free independent thought is needed, and economic prosperity depends on it. 

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