The new century has cooled the case for climate alarmism.
Global warming has stalled — not accelerated as
expected. Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere
have increased, but temperatures have been flat for the
last eight years and have slightly fallen since 1998's
El Nino-driven temperature spike.
If the cool-off continues until 2015, as could be the
case according to a study published in Nature magazine,
we will have had a see-saw of global warming (1900-45),
global cooling (1945-75), global warming (1975-98), and
flatness (1998-2015).
Where does all of this leave us coming out of the Little
Ice Age that ended in the mid-18th century — and
after a century of greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere?
Today's temperature is about 1 degree Fahrenheit warmer,
and in a naturally warmer climate cycle. Compare this
to Al Gore's scary talk about an 11-degree man-made temperature
rise this century under business as usual.
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One decade does not end the debate. But it is yet another
data point against treating carbon dioxide as a pollutant
and stringently regulating today's consumer-chosen energy
economy. And it explains the desperation of those who
accuse critics of climate catastrophism as being "deniers"
(as in Holocaust deniers) and "flat earthers."
Of course the climate is changing — always has
and always will — and there may very well be a distinct
human influence on climate. Carbon dioxide is a warming
agent, as are the other greenhouse gases emitted into
the atmosphere from human activities. But the good news
is that so far the observed climate sensitivity to greenhouse
gases is much less than what some climate models predict.
And the news gets better. A moderately warmer and wetter
world, natural or man-made, coupled with the carbon dioxide
fertilization effect on plants and agriculture, has distinct
benefits, not just costs. As a climate specialist at the
U.S. Department of Interior has calculated, a 600-fold
increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the last two centuries
has accompanied an eight-fold increase in population,
a 75-fold rise in manufacturing and a 60-fold increase
in global economic output. This is why climate economists
are much more optimistic than many climate scientists
about the future of climate and the economy.
