NEWSWEEK/MIT: GLOBAL WARMING IS NATURAL - AND IT MIGHT BE GOOD

MIT'S RICHARD LINDZEN IN NEWSWEEK:

The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's no such thing as an optimal temperature—a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.

... one overlooked mystery is why temperatures are not already higher. Various models predict that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere will raise the world's average temperature by as little as 1.5 degrees Celsius or as much as 4.5 degrees. The important thing about doubled CO2 (or any other greenhouse gas) is its "forcing"—its contribution to warming. At present, the greenhouse forcing is already about three-quarters of what one would get from a doubling of CO2. But average temperatures rose only about 0.6 degrees since the beginning of the industrial era, and the change hasn't been uniform—warming has largely occurred during the periods from 1919 to 1940 and from 1976 to 1998, with cooling in between. Researchers have been unable to explain this discrepancy.

... Climate modelers assume the cause must be greenhouse-gas emissions because they have no other explanation. This is a poor substitute for evidence, and simulation hardly constitutes explanation. Ten years ago climate modelers also couldn't account for the warming that occurred from about 1050 to 1300. They tried to expunge the medieval warm period from the observational record—an effort that is now generally discredited. The models have also severely underestimated short-term variability El Niño and the Intraseasonal Oscillation. Such phenomena illustrate the ability of the complex and turbulent climate system to vary significantly with no external cause whatever, and to do so over many years, even centuries.

Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies.

RTWT!

SO... WHY ARE SO MANY PROCLAIMING THAT MAN-MADE CO2 IS CAUSING GLOBAL WARMING?

BECAUSE IT FITS THEIR LONG-HELD POLITICAL IDEOLOGY.

AND I WOULD BET THAT MOST OF THE "CLIMATE SCIENTISTS" IN THEIR PRIME TODAY WENT INTO THE FIELD IN THE 1970'S BECAUSE THEY WERE LEFTIST ECOLOGICAL, POLITICAL ACTIVISTS. LEFTISTS WHO WANTED TO BRIDLE CAPITALISM AND INDUSTRY WAY BACK THEN.

THEY FEEL THAT AGW IS THE "HOLY GRAIL" THE KEY TO FINALLY INFLICT THEIR LEFTIST POLICIES ON THE REST OF US. FOR THE COMMON GOOD, OF COURSE!

DON'T FALL FOR IT!