Greg Morse February 23, 2000 Sherman Prize Speaking Contest Speech

If Global Warming Did Not Exist, It Would Be Necessary To Invent It

Long ago, Voltaire said, If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. This theory satisfied the people that thought about it at the time. Now, however, one might think of the global warming theory in the same way, If global warming did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it. Many people believe that global warming does exist, and that man has a significant role in earth

temperature changes. I seriously question that conclusion. This issue has become a political issue and global warming supporters do not base their conclusions on good science. First, let us look at how this issue has come into our national conscience. Global warming came about after researchers found the earlier global cooling theory to be wrong, both of these environmental

catastrophe theories being government funded. Global cooling was a doomsday argument since there were slight temperature declines, due to what supporters claimed to be from hydrocarbons or greenhouse gases. Now global warming argues the opposite, also due to hydrocarbons, the government employing many researchers to prove that global warming exists. Many global cooling and warming

supporters are anti-technology supporters as well. The EPA includes a description of global warming on their web site, which is accessible today. However, in their main description of global warming, they admit that they are uncertain how these gases effect the earth, and yet they conclude that the gases are causing global warming. Since humans emit many greenhouse gases, the easiest way for the EPA

prove global warming is by showing an increase in temperatures. In 1996, B. D. Santer published an article in Nature magazine about the increasing temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere troposphere. However, he falsified the data in his graph to prove his point by not including about 10 years of data before and after the group of years that he presented. P. J. Michaels and P. C. Knappenberger came back with

an article in Nature magazine showing all the data, proving Santers data was incomplete, and therefore completely misleading and wrong. Scientists are being paid by the government to prove global warming and in order to be paid they will twist the data so it supports the hypothesis of global warming. Politicians pay these researchers to prove global warming because if global warming exists, it gives

politicians further power to control private property. The EPA for example requested twenty one million dollars for research on their global change project, which has an objective of determining mans effect on the environment. Since the EPA only applies restrictions what man can and cannot do, the EPA gives the scientists the objective of proving worst case scenarios. Instead of paying researchers to study

how greenhouse gas effects the earth, the government requires them to show global warming to be true, even if all of the evidence shows otherwise. Thus, the research is useless, since the scientists are required to show global warming is occurring. Now let us look at the argument against global warming. The many that argue against global warming have taken the big picture to

base their case on, and have significant amounts of evidence that prove global warming false in multiple ways. There has been a significant increase in carbon dioxide in the air, which neither side disputes. However after further research, Arthur Robinson and other scientists show data that one cannot relate the temperature on the earth to greenhouse gases whatsoever, but one can relate the temperature of the

earth to the solar magnetic cycle of the sun, the sun determining the temperature of the earth with only a few slight discrepancies. The National Climate Data Center has the United States national temperatures for the past 103 years yet they do not show great temperature changes, and the temperature changes that occur are because of the sun. Both sides agree that there is such a thing as the

greenhouse effect, also, yet they disagree on how the atmosphere responds to the greenhouse effect. The EPAs IPCC hypothesis for global warming however showed much larger increases in temperature than those that occurred, proving that the negative greenhouse effect theories are probably false. Problems arise when measuring temperatures because the location is very significant. Global warming

researchers often obtain their temperatures from highly populated areas. However, scientists proved that the population of an area relates to the temperature. Modern technology has an effect on heating of crowded areas, black, heat-absorbing pavement being a large reason for the heat. The largest discovery though, is the discovery of how the large increase in carbon dioxide is helping us. Extensive research has proven that the

higher the carbon dioxide concentration in the air, the faster plant growth will occur. Recently the size, the number of branches, needles, roots, limbs and virtually all aspects having to do with plant growth, have risen or sped up significantly due to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Thus plants yield more than they would; for example, dry grain yielded 25% more in 1994 than 1993 and wet grain yielded

12% more in 1994 than 1993. Scientists have found these same results in laboratories to prove further this correlation between increased carbon dioxide and plant growth. The number of benefits the increased carbon dioxide gives us is incredible and helps all agricultural industries. Since the plants will grow faster, they will convert more of the carbon dioxide into oxygen, causing a balance in the system again.

Even if global warming did exist, which the scientific evidence proves doubtful, Iben Browning shows that man still has virtually no effect on climate: Well an overall view is that man is truly insignificant in the scheme of things. He takes himself much more seriously than the world takes him. The greenhouse effect for example is supposed to be due to carbon dioxide produced by the fuel that man uses. Actually

termites consume 38% of all the cellulose in the world and I am not complaining because without termites you would be up to your neck in leaves and twigs. But the termites are very gassy little animals and they give out 260% as much CO2 as man produces with all the fuel that he burns. So man is truly insignificant when compared with a termite.

The greenhouse effect is probably primarily political and people who really have studied it surely cannot take it seriously. Where are we today on this issue? Congress confronts many bills regarding the global warming issue; however, recent petitions may finally be overcoming the politicians agendas. In Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, a conference on global warming took place. The

outcome was an agreement came out that went to Congress, which would limit the uses of hydrocarbons. Arthur Robinson at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine had his institution sponsor a petition to reject the agreement and all agreements like it. The petition received massive support, from over 19700 signers, 17100 of which are scientists with degrees. The petition on the opposite side only has

about 2500 supporters. This imbalance has stopped the agreement from passing through Congress, and global warming advocates realize that their claim of a consensus about global warming was false. Thus, the truth is slowly but surely coming out, that global warming is a hoax. In conclusion, the best way to look at global warming is to stop trying to invent global warming, since it does not exist.