Posted On: April 6, 2007, 2:18 pm CDT

Posted By: Skeptik

I have a deep concern that good science is being hijacked by junk science. When the outcomes from a field of scientific research are deemed by its supporters to be of such certainty that further debate or research is pointless, then it ceases to be science and enters the realm of propaganda.

The issue of global warming has become such a political and scientific football that those of us who point to the ever growing body of evidence that man-made CO2 is probably not the primary cause of global warming are labeled as ignorant, environment hating heretics. In truth I am as supportive of the environment as the next man but I take issue with those who would have us spend billions trying to prevent a natural phenomenon over which we have little or no control.

It is becoming evident, through hard scientific evidence, that the sun's variability is possibly the most likely primary cause of global warming, not CO2. Dansgaard, Oeschger, et al discovered physical evidence that points towards a solar induced climate change cycle, but nowhere do politicians or the media raise this fact or the conclusions of their work. Instead we are bombarded almost daily with dire apocalyptic forecasts of man induced global warming outcomes that almost always do not eventuate.

A case in point. Remember the supposedly sinking Maldives? In 2003 before members of the Geological Society of America, Nils-Axel Mörner, a geologist from the University of Stockholm presented a paper that clearly demonstrated through solid physical evidence that the sea level around the Maldive Islands has risen and fallen repeatedly over the millennia and most recently from 1790-1970 the sea level rose by about 30 cm to then fall 30 cm in the 1970s to today's level, which is the statistical norm. He concluded that the Maldives will probably not sink anytime soon.

We need honest assessment of the situation by scientists, politicians and the media, not sycophantic agreement with those who have a political or financial axe to grind. I do not have a problem with a concerted effort to encourage and establish new clean sustainable energy sources. I do have a problem with the effort being based on a theory that is now being slowly disproved and the spending of billions unnecessarily on carbon credits and other such nonsense.

I look forward to the day when we can take a balanced, considered approach, to the issue of climate change and encourage an honest appraisal of its effects. I also look forward to the public support of any scientist who wishes to come forward with new evidence in support of any climate theory and not have him or her manipulated, threatened or silenced by those with whom they disagree.