Brian Beyer claims global warming is “largely” because of “carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases we have been spewing into the atmosphere.” The fact remains that water vapor, not carbon dioxide, makes up the majority of greenhouse gases (GHG). Yet whenever talk of global warming arises, CO2 is always pegged as the major player, not water vapor, probably because humans don’t make clouds.
While it’s true temperatures have been rising on average, the correlation between increasing CO2 levels and increasing temperatures shows little confidence in CO2 being the definitive cause. In fact, the correlation between solar cycles and rising temperatures show comparable, if not better, correlation! Mount Kilimanjaro’s ice caps’ disappearance is because of deforestation around its base allowing dry air from the surrounding desert to flow up and vaporize it not because of Global warming.
The ultimate demon of the global warming fad is the computer climate model. The fact remains climate is one of the most complicated things on this earth. The Weather Channel doesn’t predict weather further than 10 days, so why would you trust a computer model predicting it 100 years from now with a 400 percent error? Since scientists don’t really know how climate works on a world scale, they just make it up by varying the thousands upon thousands of variables and publish them.
Politicized science is dangerous. All facts and theories (not popular ones) must be considered. Many of us don’t remember the 1970s articles ran in major news outlets similar the ones today, only they warned of Global cooling and a new Ice age!
Let’s spend time and money learning more about climate before we go killing our economy on a theoretical whim!
 
Jonathan Loubiere
Graduate Student
Chemical Engineering