'elf Expressions Ezine

If there's one thing that can heat me up quickly, it's the issue of global warming. Or, should I say, supposed global warming? Oh, I know that's not a popular thing to say—especially these days where everywhere you turn you're confronted with some other "save the planet" initiative.

As you know, I'm usually at odds with much of the so-called conventional wisdom out there. But what irks me most about "global warming" is that it's managed to become conventional wisdom without the benefit of any actual scientific fact. Global warming has become a fait accompli because of a concerted PR (or should I say propaganda) effort.

Well, you won't hear about this in any mainstream media, but there's new evidence that Al Gore's "rapidly disappearing" polar ice cap has made a remarkable comeback. According to statistics from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, polar ice cap levels, which had shriveled to just 4 million square kilometers by January of 2007 are now back up to their original level of 13 million square kilometers.

According to scientists, the northern hemisphere is in the midst of one of its coldest winters in decades, and snowfall has reached a record level not seen since 1966. Central and southern China recently experienced crippling snows that brought much of that vast country to a halt for several days. This winter there's even been snow in, of all places, the Middle East (not generally known for its skiing).

As a man of science, I think there's a suspicious stink to the global warming issue. To be sure, there are legitimate scientists and researchers who ascribe to the theory. And I'm sure that climatologists are both stunned and excited that their discipline has actually become sexy and high-profile over the last 10 years. But what no one bothers to point out is that there are just as many legitimate scientists and researchers who think global warming is a bunch of hooey.

I often rail about the undue influence that money [follow the money], business, and politics have on our health care system. Other scientific disciplines are identical to medicine in this way—they don't operate in a vacuum.

Thirty years ago, climatologists and earth scientists bickered and disagreed over these issues (remember the famed "hole in the ozone" that was being created by aerosol spray cans?). The difference between now and then is that these internecine fights never made the news. Until this global warming hubbub, climatology wasn't considered a life-or-death issue the way medicine is. And just like doctors who are influenced by money from Big Pharma, so, too, are earth scientists and climatologists swayed by grant money and funded research. Oh, yes—my "follow the money" dictum applies to these guys, too.

And since global warming has become a political minefield and seemingly as divisive an issue in our time as the abolition of slavery was in the 1850s and 1860s, there's big-time grant and research money being tossed about to help politicians (regardless of their stance on the issue) make their points. Which is why you need to take the entire global warming argument with a gigantic grain of salt.

To me, the concept of man-made climate change strains credulity. First, let's take a look at the "facts" upon which this supposed warming trend is based. How long would you say that mankind has been able to accurately record temperatures? A hundred years? A hundred and fifty at the most? If you see a TV weatherman talking about a "record" high temperature, is that "hottest day" ever, say, in July of 1712? Nope. The records usually don't go back much farther than the 1890s. So how can we draw a conclusion about a global warming trend based on a little over a century of accurately kept records, keeping in mind that a century represents little more than a nanosecond of geologic time? We can't.

I know that there are other factors involved—polar core samples, soil records, etc. But earth scientists are always telling us how cyclical the world is—how the earth has experienced several ice ages where massive glaciers advanced and retreated over the course of several millennia. Knowing that, I find it just a little laughable to be getting worked up over doomsday scenarios that predict all of mankind to be living in a sweltering desert just 20 years from now, unless we all stop putting our groceries in plastic bags.

The next time you read about global warming, I hope you'll look upon it with the same skeptical and money-following jadedness that I've taught you to have when it comes to health care issues. Remember: money, politics, and agendas, my friends. There's not a single issue in our world that's not influenced by all three.