Long-term view of climate change

Politicians and biased media claim that the science supporting man-made global warming is settled by consensus among scientists, but ignore evidence from scientists who doubt their conclusions or reserve judgment.

Geologist G. D. Robinson takes a long-term view of climate change in his book “Global Warming Alarmists, Skeptics & Deniers.” Based on studies of sedimentary deposits, ice cores and other sources of data, geologists know that Earth’s climate has changed continually for millions of years. Climate change is largely explained by changes in Earth’s orientation and orbit around the sun, tectonic and volcanic activity, solar intensity related to sunspot activity and other natural effects. Water vapor in clouds has up to 20 times stronger influence than carbon dioxide has on Earth’s temperature. In the past, plants and animals flourished while temperatures and CO2 levels were much higher than today.

Many defects have been noted in data, methods and computer models used to predict catastrophic global warming. IPCC computer models minimize effects of solar activity on atmospheric water vapor, and fail to reproduce well-documented past climate changes, such as the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Local weather events are often confused with climate change, which requires a much longer time (at least decades) to develop. Viewed from a long-term perspective, weather patterns during the past century are within normal ranges.

Rather than damaging the world economy by abandoning fossil fuels, we should encourage scientists and engineers to develop better ways to conserve energy and produce clean energy.

This story was originally published July 5, 2017 at 10:01 PM with the headline "Long-term view of climate change."