The science of climate change is at best undecided and confused irrespective of politics driving the current genda to reduce carbon emissions. In terms of geological cycles meteorological data recorded over the last few centuries equates to almost nothing when compared with an estimated of billions of years our earth has been in existence. Ice ages have come and gone on a cyclic basis and sea levels always change as evident by vast yet dry inland seas. The fundamental argument in fact centers more on the impact of human industrial processes than proved science.
Climate change debates raged from the 1970’s with fears of a premature global ice age hastened by fossil fuel emissions yet by the 1990’s the arguments changed to global warming. In 1988 the United Nations established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change.
By the mid-nineties world governments, lobby groups and specialized political parties effectively drove opinion to conclusions that described catastrophic global warming and the dire consequences of sea level changes ranging from a few centimeters to six or more meters. Critics and challengers were silenced and branded as ‘deniers’ and a new ‘science’ stream formed on the basis of assumed global warming. Indeed new careers gained prominence in media, political and scientific communities; careers that would disappear in the event global warming did not occur in accordance with the IPCC agenda and time line.
From 2006 educational bodies began using the Al Gore feature film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ as scientific fact to begin the process of indoctrinating the next generation without bothering to encourage young learners that challenging data and scientific conclusion underpins the very nature of science as a philosophy. Facts can withstand scrutiny and factual results can be replicated again and again yet it seems this does not apply to the science of climate in the 21st century. Few seem to recognize ‘Hollywood’ exaggerated special effects of the Al Gore film, and so the ‘science’ of global warming is deemed ‘settled’.
Nature unfortunately has other ideas and has begun to demonstrate numerous inconsistencies in a dramatic way, and mean temperatures stubbornly refused to climb at the predicted or even at a mildly accelerated rate. Amateurs began to spot the inconsistencies at an alarming rate yet the IPCC increased pressure on world governments and stridently defended the ‘science of climate change’. The notable lack of ‘global warming’ signalled a defensive positioning of key administrators within the IPCC that remains today, despite a recent leaking of e-mails that revealed determination to bury contradictory data that challenged the IPCC position.
As more scientists begin to question climate data the media, IPCC and international political bodies stridently defend climate change policies while nature stubbornly refuses to cooperate. Record cold temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere raged during the 2009/2010 northern winter; deep snow and ice are currently plaguing European nations again for the 2010/1011 winter.
So with less than 400 years of contemporary scientific data comprising observations and measurements against billions of years of climate change any suggestion that science fully understands the dynamics of climate change is illogical and largely guess work based on computer simulations using selected input data. Modern satellites continually update computers with their armada of sophisticated equipment yet it seems any weather pattern falling outside selected parameters or preexisting conclusions of climate change is simply discarded. Critics continue to be silenced by the IPCC and by others who have much to lose in the event contemporary ‘science’ of climate change is proved wrong.
Science tells us a great deal about climate change, the problem is there are still too many unknowns. Any serious study of climate would not discard data that fails to support a foregone conclusion – to do so is politics, not science.
