The image is via an animation by NASA that illustrates the gradual warming of the Earth from 1884 until 2006. Click the image to view the animation.

It’s hard for some people to accept that we live in a limited world. Likewise, despite the existence of widespread evidence, it’s difficult for some people to accept that anthropogenic activities impact the Earth’s ecosystems and natural cycles.

Christopher Booker is wrong about climate change, greenhouse gases, and global warming, because he conveniently ignores data and observations that strongly indicate that anthropogenic-driven climate change is occurring. Booker also fails to address the precedent of how human activity has resulted in widespread environmental degradation in other types of environments (i.e., aquatic, sylvan, and within other ecosystems). Therefore, why wouldn’t human activities impact or alter the atmospheric environment.

We extract oil from the ground, place it in barrels, and then consume it. During the consumption process, fuel is burned, but the fuel, or the things that make up the fuel, don’t magically disappear — that’s thermodynamically impossible. Instead, the combustion of fossil fuels, such as petroleum-based fuels, produces pollutants such as carbon dioxide, which persist in the environment and certainly do impact the environment and human health.

For example, the excess carbon dioxide, that’s produced from burning fossil fuels, disrupts the Earth’s natural carbon cycle (just like fertilizer runoff impacts Earth’s natural nitrogen cycle). As a result, the excess carbon dioxide has been linked to an increase in ocean acidification. Data shows that “between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104 (a change of -0.075).” This decrease in ocean pH parallels with the Industrial Revolution, and “it is believed that the resulting decrease in pH will have negative consequences, primarily for oceanic calcifying organisms” (e.g., corals).

Another consequence of burning fossil fuels are rising temperatures. Over the past one-hundred years, “temperatures have warmed about 1.35°F (0.75ºC),” and according to data from the National Climatic Data Center, “Looking at the average temperature during floating five-year periods (for example, 2003–2007, 2002–2006, and so on), the last nine (since 1995) were the warmest in 113 years of U.S. record keeping.” Science has shown, and continues to show, that the gradual warming of the Earth is due to an increase in the anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases.

Carbon dioxide, in addition to other substances like methane and water vapor, is a greenhouse gas, and “levels of several important greenhouse gases have increased by about 25 percent since large-scale industrialization began around 150 years ago.” However, despite the scientific evidence linking ocean acidification and rising temperatures to anthropogenic activities such as burning fossil fuels, there are folks that still deny causality.  At this point in time, instead of bickering, purposely sabotaging debate or sowing the seeds of doubt, or deliberately ignoring the evidence or data that’s accumulating in support of anthropogenic climate change, we should be arguing about solutions to climate change and environmental degradation in addition to developing polices that will help provide resources for the world’s population.

Certainly, much of the controversy exists because climate change is a very complex problem. Climate is complex, because many events and phenomena impact our Earth’s climate, such as volcanic activity, deforestation, and natural cyclical activity. However, to argue that our activities, especially the burning of tens of millions of tons of fossil fuels, which enter the atmosphere, don’t impact the Earth’s environments is ignorant, uncivilized, dangerous, and criminal. If there is a natural warming event currently happening, then that doesn’t mean that we aren’t exacerbating or speeding up the process.

Besides being a complex issue, another big problem with the climate change debate is rhetoric. Disbelievers such as Christopher Booker deny climate change with rhetoric (and this rhetoric appeals to other disbelievers), but Booker also doesn’t present any strong evidence, data, or constructive points of view to support the rhetoric his spews. Contrarily to Booker’s position, there is mounting evidence from all disciplines that indicate a warming world. This evidence includes (1) the upward migration of species into higher elevations (“climate warming is therefore considered as a primary cause of the observed upward migration of high mountain plants“); (2) the migration of species into different latitudinal zones (latitudinal migration); (3) an increase in ocean acidification; (4) an increase in glacial melting; and (5) an increase in temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

There is more evidence that suggests our planet is warming. For example, I once sat in on a DOC/NOAA/NMFS Ecosystems Surveys Branch presentation in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. During the presentation, the fisheries biologists discussed that they were observing southern fish species (in terms of diversity and frequency) move into northern waters (presumably as ocean temperatures warm). Additionally, the biologists discussed that they were observing some deepwater or northern species move south into areas such as the Gulf of Maine (presumably because Arctic melting is pushing colder water south).

Despite the mounting evidence, there will be dissenters of certain issues (e.g., evolution, homosexuality), because it is easier and more convenient for some folks to ignore the evidence (even if the evidence is clear and convincing to reasonable minds). Attempting to solve or admitting the existence of some of these issues is too much for some people to deal with. For example, accepting climate change as an American is realizing that we live inefficient and wasteful lives. Therefore, we must restructure not only how we live but how we conduct commerce and how we measure economic success. Certainly, the almost seven billion souls on Earth can’t live as inefficient and wasteful as most Americans do. There just aren’t enough resources. Nonetheless, it seems that most Americans aren’t willing to become more altruistic or pay more to benefit something greater than their own unimportant, self-centered existences.

The United States can continue to grow as a rich nation while implementing policies that support sustainable development.  Furthermore, our newfound advances in sustainability can foster technological innovation while saving resources.  Certainly, we have the knowledge to build sustainable societies, but we lack the political and social will to implement policies that can help build sustainable communities.

Regarding dissenters of environmental issues, the Republican Party of the United States must become more competent and serious about environmental issues instead of pretending to care about the environment through something called green conservativism. If the Republican Party doesn’t embrace and grasp the environmental and energy challenges of the United States and the world, then the GOP will become increasingly irrelevant. In reality, progressive change isn’t detrimental, because change is healthy and very much needed for civilizations to evolve. There is no progress in the status quo (or in Republican policies).

The environmental movement has remedied many wrongs that too many people benefit from (even the dissenters). These benefits have included the cleaning up of toxic pollution left behind by negligent, reckless corporations; championing policies that improve air quality and the discharge of pollutants into waterways; engineering efficiency into everyday American life; preserving biodiversity, and being proactive about climate change. Undoubtedly, society has benefited from the environmental movement, and a healthy society can ironically, support the growth of commerce and small businesses. Despite the obvious, certain politicians and pundits continue to deny the benefits associated with preserving the environment.

For example, Christopher Booker wrote an article for the Telegraph entitled “2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved.” Many of Booker’s assertions are off mark, because he made nothing but straw man or sham arguments:

The first, on May 21, headed “Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts”, reported that the entire Alpine “winter sports industry” could soon “grind to a halt for lack of snow”. The second, on December 19, headed “The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation”, reported that this winter’s Alpine snowfalls “look set to beat all records by New Year’s Day”.

As a personal observation, I grew up in North Carolina, and my parents still reside there. The climate of North Carolina has undoubtedly changed dramatically since my childhood. Winter arrives later in the year and spring arrives earlier in the year. Sure we still receive the odd snowstorm, but the incidents are isolated and relatively rare, and right now there is still a lot of green outside. I remember as a child being able to play in the snow, which seemed to last for weeks. I can’t remember the last time we had a snow in January or February that remained for longer than a few days. Furthermore, I’ve heard all types of North Carolinians make similar observations about the weather, from sportsmen that typically vote Republican to my parents whose childhood transpired during the Great Depression.

First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.

Climate models are very helpful to predict trends, and as they continue to discover what impacts or influences the Earth’s climate, scientists are constantly adding new data to their climate models. Booker, unlike scientists, doesn’t cite data for his assertions, but here are some credible sources that refute his claims. Consider these recent news headlines: 2008 will be coolest year since 1997: WMO, La Nina Cools World, Making 2008 10th-Warmest Year, but 2008 is world’s 10th hottest year. The New York Times provides some more insight for 2008:

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the World Meteorological Organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Britain’s Hadley Center have all issued recaps of the past year’s temperature patterns today.

The past year, according to the NASA group (the “meteorological year” from December through November), is between the 7th and 12th warmest (because of the range of uncertainty in readings) since systematic meteorological record-keeping began in 1880. But the Goddard scientists note that the 9 warmest years in the record have occurred since 1998. Some highlights: Over part of the past year, the Pacific was in its cyclical cool phase, called La Niña; the Arctic remained far warmer than usual for recent decades. (Many Arctic specialists say the recent warming around the North Pole is more widespread than an Arctic hot spell in the early 20th century, which was centered near Greenland.)

[INSERTED 12:30 p.m.:] Two teams using satellite data to track global temperature trends instead of surface measurements have charted different peaks and valleys but show the same overall trajectory. James E. Hansen, the head of Goddard and an outspoken campaigner for prompt cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, explained that the decades-long global warming trend and patterns of warming remain consistent with a growing influence on climate from the planet’s building blanket of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. He has warned that if all the world’s countries fail by 2030 to move away from burning coal for power (at least without capturing the emitted CO2), it will be impossible to avoid a long slide toward Earth becoming “a different planet” from the one human societies have experienced for thousands of years.

Some statistics specialists have taken issue with some of the Goddard Institute’s methods, but the differences between NASA’s findings and those of the independent British group are “very small,” said David Parker of the Hadley Center in an email.

More from Booker:

Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the “hottest in history” and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.

Booker still doesn’t cite any data to support his claims, and he sounds just as hysterical as those he claims are overreacting. Data has shown that glaciers, the Arctic, and the Antarctic are melting and becoming warmer as time passes, but we continue to live in the status quo.

…was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.

Booker reveals his paranoia with these words: “blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.” When scientists are wrong, they admit they’re wrong, because eventually their data will not comport to their hypotheses. Furthermore, the scientific community is very diverse, so it is unlikely that there is a vast uniform conspiracy attempting to impose an agenda on the rest of the world. Also, the peer-review process is a check on the scientific community, and as scientists have discovered new data, they have taken advantage of it and supplemented their climate models and understanding of the dynamics of climate change (the image shows the evolution of climate models and added components—the image is courtesy of Warren Washington, NCAR. ©UCAR.). As these new data have been discovered, hypotheses discarded, or validated, the consensus within the scientific community has remained that the Earth is unnaturally warming due to anthropogenic activities.

All those grandiose projects for “emissions trading”, “carbon capture”, building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to “biofuels”, are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.

Certainly, it will take time to solve the complex problems associated with climate change and to determine what remedies are needed to solve climate change. However, claiming that wind turbines are “useless” is complete ignorance. Furthermore, biofuel policy was largely driven by overzealous policies and politics, and it was the scientific community that linked land-use policies and how biofuels can drive the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide instead of mitigating it.

Booker ends with two irrelevant stories in an attempt to parallel the realities within these stories to the climate change debate. Ultimately, we should hear all sides of an argument, but, given the enormity of the issue that climate change is, the Telegraph should put Booker to a higher standard. The paper should force him to provide credible data to back his arguments instead of allowing him to make contrived notions to support his own paranoid beliefs.

On the Net:

1. Understanding Climate Change: Frequently Asked Questions about Climate Change
2. Glaciers and Glacial Warming, Receding Glaciers
3. Disintegration: Antarctic Warming Claims Another Ice Shelf

What can you do to fight climate change? You can educate yourselves about energy and the environment and make choices that reflect sustainability. Changing habits — even just a little, in the aggregate — can make big differences.

The above graphic is from www.learningfundamentals.com.au.