Get Ready for Global Cooling

Some of you will be aware that I’m not sold on anthropogenic (yeah, I just love saying that word) global warming. The article below presents several data points that feed my growing skepticism.

The more hysterically religious the Al Gore gallery gets on the issue the more skeptical I become. Of course my skepticism needs to be legitimated by skeptical and credible scientists - and that role has been abundantly filled by the likes of Richard Lindzen at MIT and Phillip Stott of the University of London.

In 2003 a poll conducted by environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch found that more than 2/3 of climate scientists did not believe that “the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases.” That has changed little in the past five years. But you would never know that from tuning into your average pop media coverage of the topic.

So without further ado, this is worth an honest read. Even if you’re skeptical of my skepticism.

With only a little bit more ado I’ll relate an anecdote from a meeting last year of IQ2 in Manhattan. It was a debate with Lindzen and two others on one side and three leading warming alarmists on the other. The proposition was “Global warming is not a crisis.” In the initial survey of the brainy Manhattan audience (always taken at IQ2 events) the proposition was voted against by a 57 - 30 margin. After listening to scientists debate the evidence from both sides for 90 minutes the tally flipped - 46 - 42 for the skeptics. It was one of many moments that have shown me that when intelligent people hear both sides of the story they see the situation differently than they might if they just go watch Al Gore’s movie.

So free your mind a bit and accept the possibility that the science here isn’t actually settled.