Analyzing Global-warming Science
By: William F. Jasper
February 18, 2008
Interview of Dr. Arthur Robinson by William F. Jasper
Dr. Arthur Robinson is a professor of chemistry and is cofounder of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which was created in 1980 to conduct basic and applied research in subjects applicable to increasing the quality, quantity, and length of human life. As part of his work, he edits the newsletter Access to Energy.
Dr. Robinson, in collaboration with other scientists, was one of the early critics of doomsday global-warming theories. He has authored articles and created video presentations demonstrating that the hypothesis of human-caused global warming is wrong, showing that the hypothesis is not supported by the observable evidence. To come to this conclusion, Professor Robinson and his colleagues brought together the findings of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies about all aspects of the global-warming hypothesis.
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THE NEW AMERICAN: Flip on any channel, open any newspaper or magazine, and it’s clear we are being bombarded with the message that the Earth is warming. Is there any merit to this claim?
Dr. Arthur Robinson: Yes, but the temperature is only going up 0.5° C per century. Moreover, this increase is not being caused by human activity.
TNA: Those who blame mankind for causing global warming would respond to that point by saying that the Earth is the warmest it’s been in 400 years, and that’s significant.
Dr. Robinson: They’re right, but they only show you the data from the last 400 years. If the data for a longer time interval is considered, temperatures today are seen to be not especially warm. The current temperature is about average for the past 3,000 years. It was much warmer during the Medieval Climate Optimum 1,000 years ago (see Figure 1). The climate, as we know from historical records, was just fine during that warm period. In fact, it was a little better. So, yes, it is the warmest in 400 years.
Moreover, the temperature, which is going up very slowly, is correlated with the sun’s activity, not hydrocarbon use (see Figure 3).
TNA: Those same people would say that science has spoken, that CO2 is the cause. What do you say?
Dr. Robinson: Gore, et al., tell us that CO2 is a pollutant, and that humans have caused this terrible problem. But actually the atmosphere contains lots of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, water, and oxygen are required for life. Without these substances in the atmosphere, life would not be possible. All of the carbon in our bodies originates as atmospheric carbon dioxide. Plus, we’re only adding moderately and temporarily to CO2 levels. Carbon dioxide moves through the atmosphere on its way to the oceans and biosphere. Human use has caused a transient increase during the past century — from about 0.03 percent to 0.04 percent of atmospheric molecules. Man is producing about 8 gigatons per year, and yet there are 40,000 gigatons in the biosphere and oceans.
TNA: Which come from?
Dr. Robinson: Which are just there — created as part of nature. Between 1880 and 1890, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was about 295 ppm [parts per million]. For comparison, this office right now is rising toward 1,000 ppm because we’re all exhaling carbon dioxide.
The human-caused increase in the atmosphere is not permanent, but temporary. This increase is only being maintained by our production and, as soon as we stop producing at some later time when our technology advances, it will go back to its naturally controlled level.
When we use hydrocarbons, the resulting carbon dioxide goes through the atmosphere on its way to the oceans and biosphere, so there is a rise in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide has a very short half-time of about seven years in the atmosphere. However, while it is in higher concentration, it is wonderful for us because it makes our plants grow faster, which markedly increases the amounts and diversity of plant and animal life.
TNA: Al Gore also says that the UN’s IPCC has spoken, and the debate is over, because there is a consensus. What do you say to that?
Dr. Robinson: Right now the UN claims that they have about 2,500 people involved in this and about 600 scientists seriously involved. This is what Al Gore would point to today.
We have more than 22,000 scientist signers of our global-warming petition who’ve looked at the issue and concluded essentially the opposite of these United Nations people. This says nothing about the science. Science does not depend on polling. Just because we have 22,000, and the UN may have 600, does not matter. The only thing our petition demonstrates is that there is no consensus among scientists in support of the UN claims.
Scientific questions are never settled in this way. Science is about natural truth. The truth doesn’t require any advocate. It stands by itself.
In science, a scientist may discover the truth about something. Then he develops a hypothesis, and the hypothesis is tested by various means. So long as the hypothesis passes experimental tests, it becomes stronger and is further relied upon — unless it fails an experimental test. If it is a very fine hypothesis with wide utility, it may spread throughout the entire scientific community and become part of the basis of scientific knowledge. The process by which this is done is not what is important. The truth is important. Scientific truth is not determined by polling or by convening meetings.
TNA: But when looking at the pronouncements of the United Nations — IPCC and the media, the average viewer would be led to believe that they’ve figured global warming out.
Dr. Robinson: Climate science is a very primitive science. The atmosphere is a complicated system, somewhat similar to human biochemistry. We know some things, but we don’t know most of the needed facts. As you know, climatologists have trouble predicting the weather a week or two in advance. They surely cannot predict climate many years in the future.
There are some very fine scientists, like Richard Lindzen at MIT, who work on the details of climate theory and attempt to understand the atmosphere in detail. They are inching forward toward the eventual solution of this very complex system. Today, this system can only be evaluated empirically because it is not yet understood.
We can show that the hypothesis of human-caused global warming is false, however, because we have enough empirical data to falsify this hypothesis. Human-caused global warming is a hypothesis that has failed so many experimental tests that it is clearly without merit.
TNA: To the average person, those IPCC reports look very authoritative, very intimidating. It looks to us like a battle between two sides of experts. How do we know whom to believe?
Dr. Robinson: First, just because the UN has spent an enormous amount of money to convene meetings of 600 mostly self-interested people — many of whom are receiving research grants and other perks for participating — to try to determine something that isn’t knowable with current data and techniques, and produce a report, proves nothing.
Moreover, many of these 600 disagree with the conclusions that the UN-IPCC advertises. The scientists are never allowed to approve or disapprove the final report, and many of the comments that they submit for publication in the report are rejected by UN bureaucrats.
First, the report that is initially released to the public by the UN-IPCC is an executive summary put together by a handful of people including bureaucrats, politicians, UN operatives, and a few scientists. They issue a summary report with UN propaganda in it. They then go back to the reports of the 600 scientists and insert sentences into those reports so that they will conform to the summary.
At no time in this process do the 600 ever vote approval or disapproval of their own report or of the summary report. So this report is not even approved by the people who are claimed to have authored it. This is a fraudulent process.
TNA: Don’t they use the same set of data as you do?
Dr. Robinson: Yes, for the most part. Except that they often unethically omit that part of the data that does not agree with their hypothesis. They pick the parts of the data that favor their conclusion and discard the rest.
If you play with the data, you can falsify with it. So the UN is picking parts of the data. We are considering it all.
TNA: Scientists who are not intimidated to speak out about this are typically charged by the enviros as being paid by the oil companies.
Dr. Robinson: Well, we’ve never been fortunate enough to receive any money from them, and I mean in any way, personally, professionally in our laboratory, or anything. We have never received a dime from anybody who has a specific economic interest in this issue. However, UN power to control and ration world energy — the real goal of their activities — would have a terrible, negative impact on the lives of all Americans. In that sense, all of our supporters have an economic interest.
TNA: Al Gore also makes a big deal about glacier recession.
Dr. Robinson: But he only shows the data for the limited time intervals that seem to support his claims. Here is the world glacier curve (see Figure 2) based on an average of all the world’s glaciers for which there are good records. Some glaciers are actually increasing, but on average the glaciers are decreasing — toward the more normal lengths that are typical of long-term average world temperatures. This curve is offset by 20 years because there is about a 20-year lag between the temperature increase and the shortening of the glaciers.
So the temperature increase reflected in the glacier lengths begins in about 1800. The glaciers have been shortening for 200 years. They started shortening a century before significant amounts of CO2 were produced by human activity. Notice also that the shortening is linear. Hydrocarbon use increased six-fold and the glacier melting rate did not change at all.
The glaciers started shortening long before we were using significant amounts of hydrocarbons, and, when we increased our use by six-fold, the shortening rate did not change. Therefore, human hydrocarbon use is evidently not the cause of glacier shortening or the mild natural temperature increase that is causing that shortening.
TNA: So what is causing the Earth to warm?
Dr. Robinson: A good clue is contained in data showing arctic air temperature vs. solar activity (see Figure 3). There is a good correlation. Surface temperature vs. solar activity data also correlates well (see Figure 4).
TNA: What about Gore’s demonstration in his movie, with those very large graphs, that CO2 tracks right along with temperature and is, therefore, the cause of that warming?
Dr. Robinson: In those curves, the temperature goes up before the CO2 and goes down before the CO2. The CO2 lags the temperature. And the reason it does is that the CO2 rise is caused by the temperature rise rather than vice versa. As temperatures rise, carbon dioxide is released from the oceans, just as the carbon dioxide is released from soft drinks when their temperature rises. Gore shows the curves with poor resolution, so that this cannot be seen by the viewer. His film is filled with dozens of other deliberate errors and misrepresentations.
My favorite is the part where Gore says that “the scientists who specialize in global warming have computer models that long ago predicted this range of temperature increase.” He then displays a graph of their alleged “predictions” and the claimed actual temperatures.
This graph is bogus in several ways, but the most striking is that the computer-predicted curve begins in 1938 — before either Al Gore or the computer had been invented. Unless Al Gore invented the computer before he was born, and didn’t show it to anybody but climate modelers until after WWII, this is impossible, because there were no computers in 1938!
TNA: Speaking of computers, allowing the UN to take over the world’s energy would have a big effect on our higher standard of living, would it not?
Dr. Robinson: An estimated nine percent of the energy of the United States is now used to power computers and the Internet. This technology cannot exist without energy. Automobiles require energy. You cannot warm your home without energy.
If the UN controls, rations, and taxes energy, they will have the power to determine whether you can run a wood stove, whether you can run an automobile, or can use any of the technology that makes our modern life possible.
When you say this to people, their eyes glaze over. They don’t believe it’s going to happen.
The power to tax and ration energy is the power to control the world — to have life and death control over every human being on the planet. No government should ever have this power. The United Nations-IPCC process is not about the climate or saving the environment. It is about power and money — lots of it.
Should Gore and the UN succeed, the effect will not only be diminished prosperity in the United States. In underdeveloped countries, billions of people are lifting themselves from poverty by means of hydrocarbon energy. If their energy supplies are rationed and taxed, they will slip backwards into poverty, misery, and death. This fits the population control agenda of the United Nations.
If the misuse and falsification of the scientific method that drives the human-caused global-warming mania succeeds, it will cause the greatest acts of human genocide the world has ever known. It must be stopped.
21 Comments
March 6, 2008 at 5:17 pm
[...] to call the vast scientific concensus VAST SCIENTIFIC CONCENSUS HUH – 22000 scientist disagree: http://inpursuitofhappiness.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/22000-scientists-disagree-with-un-global-warmin... Founder of Weather Channel disagrees: [...]
May 16, 2008 at 5:30 am
Where is the list of the 22000 scientists who have signed this petition?
Joan
June 16, 2008 at 1:29 am
Please send the list of scientists, including their qualifications, who signed the petition. Are they actively involved in climate change research? Have they published their results in scientific journals? Thanks Vivian Mower
June 19, 2008 at 1:21 pm
For list, please see the link as provided at:
http://inpursuitofhappiness.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=1091
July 6, 2008 at 5:01 am
You would be hard-pressed to find 22 scientists who disagreed with the global warming theory. In fact, you would be hard-pressed to find 2 in addition to your obscure contrarian. Tell his BS to the folks experiencing floods, killer tornados, and huge fires; and the polar bears who no longer have anywhere to swim to and drown.
July 21, 2008 at 10:25 pm
The link you gave in order to see the list of 22,000 scientists took me to WordPress, which required that I register on its site. Unfortunately, the registration process was not working although I tried it several times. Why would you not publish the list of 22,000 scientists on the same page as this article? Please email it to me. Thank you
July 21, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Janet,
Tried the link – no problem… reproduced below is the requesterd information. Hope info below helps.
==================
31,072 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,021 with PhDs
These scientists are instead convinced that the human-caused global warming hypothesis is without scientific validity and that government action on the basis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterproductively damage both human prosperity and the natural environment of the Earth.
For information about this project, click below.
http://www.petitionproject.org/
For list of signers, please see:
http://www.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/Signers_By_Last_Name.php
July 22, 2008 at 1:26 am
Dear Thnk,
The links worked perfectly. Please excuse the tone of my earlier email, which sounded skeptical if not distrustful. I admit that I do not know what to think or who to trust in the global warming debate, which has led me to review more sites such as this. I deeply appreciate the work you and your colleagues have done, allowing a more balanced picture of this issue. It is not easy, as a lay person, to jump off a bandwagon that has been embraced by so many powerful people, acting in what they believe to be the best interests of our globe and its inhabitants. At least I hope that’s what they believe, as opposed to having a hidden agenda. It must be even harder for a scientist to buck the prevailing trend and disagree with his or her contemporaries. Or maybe it’s a necessary and enticing challenge …such disagreements have been going on as long as science has been around. In any event, your work will allow me to step down from the wagon and view the landscape from a different perspective.
July 24, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Hello Janet,
Appreciate your warmness and magnanimity… and you are right to remain distrustful.
You may also perhaps like to visit a related piece at http://inpursuitofhappiness.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=1133
September 28, 2008 at 4:33 pm
[...] firmato una petizione contro tale fenomeno. Per chi legge l’inglese, ecco il link all’intervista con il dr. Arthur Robinson, co-fondatore dell’Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, uno [...]
December 17, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Ever since I first heard of global warming I have been skeptical. Obviously, I only have my “average person” view on this topic, as I am not a scientist.
I have been skeptical because I doubted those that think we “have all the answers” and “know everything” about the world around us. All the discovery specials I’ve seen on tv inform me about how the Earth over time has heated and cooled and gone through such radical change. No one would argue that this was the cause of humans, so why do we think the very small change in the last 400 years should be blamed on humans. The fact that we only have been studying the last 400 years when science has stated the Earth is much older, seems flawed from the start.
Many people are jumping on this global warming issue because that is what we hear about on tv all the time. The more your hear the same words over and over, they eventually become true to your ears. I’m interested in an open discussion about this issue before we invest all the time and money fixing a “problem” before we find out if it is something we are responsible for and are capable of fixing.
January 28, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Whether or not global warming is caused by CO2 or not, or whether by 2100 we will all be living in Kevin Costner’s Waterworld is neither here nor there. If the doomsday theories are right (and I doubt they are in their entirety) then we are probably already on the slippery slope. If the skeptics are right (which I hope) then there is also little we need to do. . . nonetheless, decreasing air pollution by reducing CO2 emissions should still be a goal regardless of what we consider to be the ultimate conclusion. Look at L.A., Beijing, Shanghai, London, Sao Paulo etc. and tell me what effect CO2 pollution has on the human population in those cities. My guess is not good.
February 3, 2009 at 3:36 pm
[...] has been created as nothing more than a scare tactic and business machine, check out this article 22,000 Scientists Disagree With UN Global Warming Push In Pursuit of Happiness, where highly respected and decorated Scientists are attempting to distance themselves from this [...]
February 4, 2009 at 12:00 am
[...] some scientist’s views to get us started: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americ…warmingsurvey/ 22,000 Scientists Disagree With UN Global Warming Push In Pursuit of Happiness Scientists Challenge Global Warming ?Crisis? I’m of the position that there are some actions of [...]
February 15, 2009 at 6:05 pm
[...] http://inpursuitofhappiness.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/22000-scientists-disagree-with-un-global-warmin... http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report http://www.oism.org/pproject/ [...]
February 17, 2009 at 4:51 pm
[...] Here is an excellent article detailing some of the aforementioned: In Pursuit of Happiness: Interview with Dr. Arthur Robinson [...]
March 5, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Global warming is a cash cow. The liberals are not concerned about the planet. They see an opportunity to take advantage of people and make them spend money needlessly. Al Gore made $100 million out of Global Warming last year alone. As usual, liberals create a crisis and try to sell you a solution (i.e., if they can tax the problem, they can fix the problem).
March 5, 2009 at 8:34 pm
As I said, this is all created to take people’s money. If the liberals can create a crisis, then they can tax us to death to “find” a solution. The fines, carbon credits, etc. are a regular cash cow.
March 13, 2009 at 9:02 pm
The article talks a lot about the 600 scientists and the U.N. How can we respond to the fact every national academy of science in every industrialized country in the world accepts the theory this article refutes. Wouldn’t that be “consensus”? The scientist interviewed here seems to have a pretty cynical conspiracy theory about world domination by the U.N. Is every science academy in on the conspiracy? Here’s something I cut and pasted from Wikipedia:
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the twentieth century,[1] and natural phenomena such as solar variation and volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward.[2][3] These basic conclusions have been endorsed by 30 scientific societies and academies of science,[B] including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.”
May 28, 2009 at 8:45 am
Okay, this Dr. has gotten other scientists to beleive his point of view, but they’re over looking one fact. He doesn’t specialize in climate science. He’s throwing percentages, but not stating where they came from. The bad thing is, these “scientists” are letting their political biases sway them one way, despite the facts. They seem to be looking at twisted data from a conspiracy theorist with a vivid imagination.
July 6, 2009 at 10:36 pm
The True Reasons For Global Warming
Earth’s Orbit Around The Sun Is Decaying
July-1983
My purpose is to gain support for this report. Global warming can be reversed, If not reversed the sun’s heat will dominate this planet’s weather, and generate unusual weather patterns, to the point where the only thing to eat will be other people. The real reason for global warming is the earth’s orbit around the sun is decaying, in other words the earth is moving closer to the sun.
The earth is a planet that functions like a machine. Like cars, trucks, aircrafts, or rockets. The earth has a fuel system, an engine system, and exhaust system. A car’s engine system generates torque, an aircraft’s engine systems generates thrust, and the earth’s engine system generates a powerful magnetic field, and the earth’s magnetic field protects all life on the surface of this planet, and beneath the oceans.
The earth’s magnetic field keeps the earth at a safe distance from the sun, and the core is the earth’s engine. The earth’s fuel system is referred to as oil wells/ crude oil reservoirs. They are actually self pressurizing fuel cells. Like any machine, if you were to shut off fuel to the engine, the engine will stop operating. The oil company’s crude oil extraction process compromises the earth’s fuel system, and shut off fuel to the earth’s engine (the core), by releasing pressure out of the earth’s fuel system (oil wells). Normally the pressure in a crude oil well/ reservoir is tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of pounds per square inch.
Under normal circumstance the core (the engine) stays at a constant 5000 to 7000 degrees celsius, and that’s hot enough to melt steel, and the pressure in the core is tens of thousands to hundreds of pounds per square inch. The oil is ignited long before it reaches the core, and enters the core as flames, and/ or heat. Crude oil, and its components are hydrocarbons, and are capable of generating the temperatures, and pressures found in the core, and mantle. Hydrocarbons are used to melt, and manufacture steel. The higher the temperature in the core, and the stronger the earth’s magnetic field. The cooler the core, the weaker the earth’s magnetic field. The earth’s engine is being fuel starved, and it is slowly cooling. As the core cools the earth’s magnetic field weakens, and the earth is being pulled closer to the sun.
Global Warming has nothing to do with green house gases, holes in the ozone, CFC, R-12 refrigerant, the sun going nova, aerosol propellant, and methane gases, etc. Hydrocarbons such as coal are safe to use. The only way to reverse global warming is for the oil companies to re-pressurize the earth’s fuel systems. One way this can be accomplished, by igniting the methane gas in the fuel cell (oil/ gas well). The ignited gas will expand, and create the pressure need to force the remaining crude oil (fuel) into the core. This is the real cause for global warming, and the only way it can be reversed. Volcanoes are the earth’s exhaust system.
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Volcanoes, the earth’s exhaust system are designed to rid the core (the earth’s engine) of spent fuel, debris, and they regulate the /pressure in the core, which is generated by the combustion, and/ or ignition of crude oil / methane gas. The pressure that’s release from volcanoes are provided by carbon dioxide, nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and the facts are these are all hydrocarbon by-product, including the pressure.
These gases, and the pressure proves beyond a shadow of doubt, hydrocarbons are being burned in the core of this planet, and lots of it. I believe it crude oil, and/ or methane gas are this planet’s fuel source. Green house gases are not responsible for global warming, it goes beyond green house gases. Something is going wrong with the earth itself, and its obit around the sun is changing, and not for the better.
The earth has shifted on it’s axis by 26 degrees, and is wobbling on it’s axis. The earth is moving away from the moon at 4 centimeters each year. A total of 24 leap seconds have been added to the atomic clock over the decades, because the earth rotation has slowed down. 12 noon use to be the hottest part of the day, now it 3 o’clock in the after noon.
Scientists are saying the day will increase from 24 to 25 hours in a day. The winters are getting sunny, and warmer from the equator (latitude- zero) to (latitude 29-N, and S), and vice versa. Both polar ice caps are being melted, one at a time, and the oceans are rising. Floods, and tornadoes are developing in winter, from (latitude 35.0 –N) to (latitude 42- N). It’s suppose to be too cold for the development tornadoes in January, and February, and there shouldn’t be enough sun rays, and heat for the green house gas theory to be applicable. The same weather is occurring in the southern hemisphere from (latitude- zero to 42-S) in winter. Nasa scientists say the earth’s magnetic field has developed a breach. It’s getting noticeably hotter every 15 to 20 years. Look at the facts, and due diligence! Most of what I’ve written in the last two paragraph, was written by scientist, geophysicists, geologists, astrophysicists, and can be found on the internet. I warn you global warming, and the apocalypse are one in the same. The decay, and global warming are in the beginning stages, the worse has yet to come.
Written by: Willie McDonald
cdnld30@gmail.com:
http://www.globalwarmingreversal.blogspot.com
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