Climate Changes over Time

Does the EPA Want You to Die Young? Have we assessed the climate changes over time properly?

The IPCC and the EPA demand that we drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels because, they insist, we human beings have caused all or nearly all of the 0.702°C rise in surface temperatures on the Earth observed since 1950. But let's take a cue from the World Climate Report and do some real science to check into this claim.

Meteorology Scientists and Researchers

But observed warming can also be influenced by non-GHG factors such as urbanization influences, local land-use changes, degradation of measuring station quality, and changes in thermometers, among others. The World Climate Report's Patrick Michaels and his colleague Ross McKitrick discovered through their research that as much as 50% of warming observed over land since 1980 was due to non-climatic influences. If we factor this in, too, now we find that the total warming possibly from man-made causes from 1950 to 2009 is only 0.468°C.

Particulate Matter Air Pollution

Then we have Ramanathan and Carmichael (Ramanathan V., and G. Carmichael, 2009. Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon. Nature GeoScience, 1, 221-227.), who through their research concluded that black carbon aerosols have caused about 25% of the climate's forced warming since the pre-Industrial period. Very large amounts of black carbon may be thrown into the atmosphere by volcanic eruptions. If we factor in black carbon, our potential GHG warming from 1950 to 2009 is lowered to just 0.306°C.

More people in recent years have become more aware of the Sun's possible influence on climate warming, and a leading researcher into this relationship is Duke University's Nicola Scafetta. Scafetta finds that since 1950, the output from the Sun could be responsible for anywhere from about zero to 65% of observed warming. Scafetta's most reasonable estimate is that the Sun has caused 33% of observed warming since 1950.

If we factor in Scafetta's conclusions, we are now reduced to only 0.204°C of warming that is even possibly related to man-made GHG emissions. This is less than one-third the amount of warming that we wicked humans are supposedly causing.

And here's something else to think about: average life expectancy in the United States since 1900 has nearly doubled. It's up to over 78 years. (In fact, for women it's about 83 years now.) In 1900 it was 47 years, three months.