The Long Dark of Winter

The Earth is Cooling—Rapidly!

The official temperature statistics for 2007 are now in. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, and RSS) have released updated data. All show that 2007 saw a sharp drop in global temperature.

2007 was one of the coldest years on record. China had its worst snowstorm in over one hundred years. Some American states recorded the highest snow falls since record keeping began. Baghdad saw its first snow in all recorded history. (http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Widescale+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm)

Note the steep drop over the past twelve months. Another couple of years like this, and we will be urged by responsible governments to buy SUV's and leave them idling all night to increase global gas emissions. Imaginet—coal fired power stations will be viewed as the new saviour of the world. And, oh, I can just hear the sneering amongst the febrile mass media—this time against the new deadly enemies of humanity—the global cooling deniers. Imagine all the bureaucrats, the think tankers, the prognosticators that will be out of jobs. All the rules and regulations that will appear not just embarassingly quaint, but straight out cockamamied. What will we do with our emissions trading scheme? Where will Greenpeace be when you need it?

No doubt we will shrug our shoulders and see it as one more madding day in Athens—that great monument to human folly. Jerusalem, however, will see it for what it is: those who disbelieve God can end up believing anything—no matter how preposterous or stupid—and usually do.

There are a number of reasons why I have always been an anthropogenic global warming (“APG”) sceptic. (“Anthropogenic” meaning “human caused global warming.”)

The primary reason is grounded squarely on the covenantal faithfulness of God Himself. There has only been one apocalyptic calamity in all human history that destroyed mankind—almost completely. The Great Flood of Noah was the one and only occasion. (Genesis 6—9). In the aftermath of the Flood, the Living God made several declarations. The first is that He declared He would never again destroy every living thing. Thus, world-wide devastation and destruction of humanity and of life itself is simply not going to happen. He declared: “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.” (Genesis 8:21)

Despite the persistent prevalence of human sin, God will withhold universal judgment, life and the earth will be preserved. Humanity as we know it will continue upon the earth, until the time that the Kingdom of God be fully come.

Secondly, and particularly pertinent to global warming, God declared;

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. (Genesis 2:22)

The seasons will cycle, and this will include an annual cycle of cold and heat.

Thirdly, to assure us of the certainty and infallibility of God's declaration concerning the climate and the seasons, and the continuation of mankind upon the earth God sets the sign of the rainbow in the heavens.

And God said, 'This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations. I will set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. And it shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creatures of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.' (Genesis 9:12—17)

Thus, claims that mankind is facing apocalyptic calamity that will lead to his and the earth's destruction should be excluded as possibilities from the start.

A second consideration leading to scepticism concerning AGW has to do with the sociology of knowledge. It turns out that all investigation, research, and learning takes place within pre-existing contexts and frames which predispose researchers to find evidence confirming the general frame with which they start. Thus, there is a strong bias towards discovering what one is looking for in the first place. This has always been the case—it is unavoidable.

That which is regarded as self-evident to an age or culture or academic discipline is usually the result of social conditioning rather than the hard evidence. The fact that other people with whom I associate or who form my window-on-the-world reference group believe some things to be true is likely to make those beliefs seem self-evident. That is not to say that hard evidence for a particular view or belief does not exist—but, it is to say that the conviction and certainty with which I hold a view usually arises not from the weight of evidence, but from the sociological context in which I live and move.

Hard scientists do not escape this conditioning phenomenon. The most effective scientists, however, have disciplined themselves to be self-conscious about the phenomenon and of the potential for, or actuality of, spurious conditioning. They have also, probably, read long and deep in the writings of Karl Popper (and others) on the unavoidable tentativeness and uncertainty of all scientific knowledge.

Unfortunately, the world is full of less-effective scientists who have to face very mundane things such as securing tenure at teaching institutions, research grants, winning peer approval, getting published—and otherwise furthering their careers. These very human realities always impact to a greater or lesser degree on the progress of scientific knowledge in general and the work of any scientist in particular. These realities act many times as the Achilles heel of proper scholarly scepticism and objectivity.

But the Achilles heel of scientific inquiry and research becomes dangerously exposed when scientists are enlisted by public policy advocates (also known as politicians and their retinues). That is precisely what has happened with the issue of APG. To further a political cause it helps to have to have access to money. The state has money (taxpayer's money). The Uberstate (the United Nations) has oodles of the stuff (also tax payers money). To get access to money one technique that can be very very effective is to shout “Doom!” loudly enough and sufficiently often. It helps, of course, to build a modicum of academic respectability to the threat and so facts and data will be selectively cited. Because professional scientists also have basic human needs and aspirations, it is very easy to secure their complicity. And because of the phenomenon of self-evidence being a function of social conditioning—they will comply willingly and will be able to maintain, at the same time, the utmost professional self-respect.

A final reason for a very healthy dose of scepticism regarding APG claims is the influence of very powerful organisations who have ulterior motives, to say the least. Large environmentalist organisations because they are fundamentally ministries of propaganda should always be treated with considerable scepticism. They have an axe to grind: it is big and they grind it ceaselessly. Power and influence come from notoriety. Notoriety comes from breathtaking, sensational claims. Sensationalism arises from jeremiads constantly trumpeted, warning of the imminent doom of the planet. The cavalier way these environmentalist jeremiahs treat evidence and truth is now well documented.

Another major axe grinding group that has entered the fray is the mass media. As environmentalist groups have discovered, the media know that notoriety and sensation sell. They increase circulation. If you were an editor of a national daily newspaper and you had to choose between two stories—one threatening doom to the planet due to global warming which requires urgent action, now! to prevent annihilation, and the other arguing that the evidence for APG is equivocal and needs to be carefully weighed—and your owners rely upon circulation for revenue, and your bonus is tied to circulation increases, which story would you be more predisposed to select? Now, that's a hard one. Let me think.

That is not to say that the media will always stay on the side of the APG brigade. It is instructive that the evidence sighted above of rapid and radical global cooling in 2007 has been ignored by all mass media in New Zealand to date. Not a peep. But, let a hint of scandal or notoriety start to emerge about APG propaganda, or let a few notables opine that thousands of people are going to die as a result of a coming ice age—then it will become a truly celebrated issue.

We do know that the earth has gone through both warming and cooling phases in the past. These were manifestly not the result of human activity. After all, Greenland did not receive its name from being covered with snow at the time. We know farmers were successfully raising crops and animals there in the early fifteenth century. Global warming with attitude. We also know this was followed by much colder periods.

In early 2007, jeremiads were proclaiming that 2007 would be the warmest year yet. Only it turned out to be the coldest in living memory—and in many cases—well beyond living memory where long run records are available. But I foresee a new global threat on the horizon—the pollution that will devastate the planet arising from years of accreted egg being wiped off the faces of multitudinous chattering classes.