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In the past 50 years, when the measurements are most reliable, the correlation between CO₂ levels and temperature is not very good. The correlation between temperature and solar activity is much better.

      • There was a rise in temperature in the medieval period and a fall in the 16th and 17th centuries. Neither appears to have been associated with an abrupt change in CO₂ levels. The fall in temperature between 1945 and 1970 occurred at a time of intense industrial activity.

      • The changes in temperatures have not been the same all over the world, although CO₂ levels in all areas are similar.

      • 2007–08 has seen some unusually cold weather in various parts of the world with snow in Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, Athens and Shanghai. The coldest winter weather since 1941 was recorded in NE Australia; a very cold winter was recorded in the northeast of the USA; there was a cold spell in California in January 2008, which devastated the citrus crop.

      • The CO₂ released by human activity comes from the carbon sequestrated from the atmosphere many years ago. It is not newly produced, merely recycled, and has therefore not added to the net level of the CO₂ on the planet.

      • The amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere is minute compared with the amount of water vapour and droplets. Water is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO₂.

      Conclusion

      It is reasonable to conclude that the world has warmed in the past hundred years and this has accelerated slightly between 1970 and 1998, after a cold spell in the 1940s and 1950s. This acceleration has now flattened off and there has been no significant warming since the El Niño peak of 1997; indeed, world temperatures have not increased since 1998. It is impossible to say whether this will remain within the limits of previous warm periods or whether it presages an exceptional period of global warming that will be a threat to mankind at some time in the future.

      To say that it is proven that manmade CO₂ is the cause of present global warming is wrong. The evidence is, at best, equivocal. It is an unproven theory. The approximate coincidence between atmospheric temperature and CO₂ levels over many thousands of years, revealed from ice-core samples, is far from proof. A casual association falls far short of scientific evidence that is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Yet it is the main evidence offered in favour of the theory. Prophecies of the future trends in global temperatures have been exclusively based on computer models. These are essentially self-confirming expressions of the original input dogma.

      The great French scientist, Claude Bernard (1813–78) complained of

      minds bound and cramped by their own theories and despisers of their fellows… They make poor observations because they choose among the results of their experiments only what suits their objective, neglecting whatever is unrelated to it and setting aside everything which might tend toward the idea they wish to combat.

      Good science is about being sceptical; to accept a theory without good evidence because it is presented as a ‘consensus view’ is bad science.

      A single proven ice-core result demonstrating, unequivocally, that the temperature rose before the CO₂ level would constitute absolute disproof and suffice to destroy the theory. There is good evidence suggesting that this has happened. Meanwhile, the lack of any significant global warming since 1998 suggests that the prophets of an accelerating disaster, of a hockey-stick-shaped increase in global temperatures, are wrong.

      We just do not know what the overall effect of the CO₂, released by man’s efforts, will have on the world’s climate; it may take many years to obtain the necessary evidence. On present evidence, it does not appear to be a cause for panic. The risk of waiting until there is more certainty is much less than the scaremongers would have us believe. There is no Armageddon waiting around the corner. The end of the world is not nigh.

      A final word

      The evidence in the IPCC report (4AR WG I) is detailed and written in an authoritative style. It is presented as the bible of climate-change science. Readers should bear in mind that the working party that drew up the conclusions included those whose own opinions and papers are widely quoted in the compilation of the report. In effect, the report gives only their side of the story. The working party did ask some of those attending (many as representatives of governments that had approved the Kyoto Protocol) for comments on the draft Protocol. The most consistent comments were that it implied a degree of certainty that was not supported by evidence. Special criticism was made of the panel’s reliance on predictions from mathematical models whose accuracy was disputed, even by the modellers.

      The late Fred Seitz, a physicist at Oregon University Department of Science and Medicine, organised an online petition questioning the link between global warming and CO₂. The petition received 33,000 signatures from American scientists, of whom over 9,000 held PhD degrees.

      In 2007, some four hundred climate scientists and astrophysicists from around the world, some of whom were on this or other IPCC panels (four times the number of those who drew up the IPCC report), produced a separate document (US Senate Report: ‘400 Prominent Scientists Dispute Man-Made Global Warming Claims’) condemning the conclusions of the report as unproven, alarmist and wrong.

      They believe that there is no evidence that the warming of the past hundred years is outside the parameter of natural temperature variability and they conclude that it is unlikely that there will be any significant warming driven by anthropogenic CO₂. They believe the scare story presented in the report is without scientific justification.

      In spite of these massive petitions from scientists who do not believe that manmade CO₂ will cause a dramatic global warming, we are told that ‘all scientists agree with the IPCC’ and that hypothesis is proven. Clearly it is not.

      Many scientists point out that there are very few institutions that can obtain funding for research that runs counter to the prevailing views of the IPCC, as a result one is left with an impression that there is no other story. It is difficult for those that question the anthropogenic global-catastrophe story to make their voice heard. The Compiler of Programmes for the BBC has said that she considers the case proven and that alternative views should not be given air time. The British peer Lord Lawson tells of the difficulty his agent had in finding an English publisher willing to promote a book that concludes that global-warming predictions are alarmist. The voice of respected scientists from outside their club of true believers is denigrated and they are frequently accused, by the green lobby, of being in the pay of the oil industry. The statement made by the chairman of the IPCC that there is a ‘consensus in this science’ is not based on fact: it results in insufficient attention being given to the views of the very large body, the silent majority, of dissenters. Good science is not served by promoting a false ‘consensus’.

      These chapters have been reviewed by five eminent scientists involved in energy science, climate physics and mathematical modelling. Two have asked for their names not to be revealed for fear of losing research funding or advancement.

      I am grateful for the advice of H O Pritchard, professor of gas kinetics and combustion, York University, Toronto, Canada; Professor B Gray (emeritus), Sydney, Australia, at present combustion and scientific consultant, Turramurra, NSW, Australia; and Michael Arthur, geophysicist. They have all have given permission for their assistance to be recognised.

       5

       THE GLOBAL ICE CAPS

      STANLEY FELDMAN

      DOGMA

      The ice caps are melting and will cause a 6-metre rise in the level of the seas.

      OF ALL THE SCARE STORIES about global warming, it is the rise in sea levels and the fear of

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