The 1990 Greenpeace Report on Global Warming said, carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere naturally and unnaturally. They define unnatural as anything humans do. It is part of the theme of environmentalism that humans shouldn’t be here or tolerated only if they behave as they are told. The other part of the idea of unnatural is exploited to keep the people enthralled, fearful and therefore controlled. H.L.Mencken’s comment that, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary” applies and is proof of the political nature of events presented, directly or with implication, as unnatural.
The false idea is presented out of context then left uncorrected by lack of follow up. This is especially true if the story is a prediction. We need a media vehicle to analyze the story in context followed by the aftermath. It’s time for a program on which doomsayers who profited financially or politically from false stories and predictions confronted and held to account. Here are some recent stories that proved incorrect.
Arctic Ice
Stephen Leahy, self-proclaimed International Environmental Journalist, claimed in 2008 that, “Arctic Ice Gone By 2015 – First Time in One million Years.”
He said it’s well ahead of the 50 to 70 year prediction of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), but they’re wrong as well. The one million year claim is scientific nonsense because three previous interglacials were warmer than the current one.
The Medieval Warm Period 1000 years ago and the 1930s more recently, were also warmer. Leahy’s source was David Barber who conveniently got a large research grant to study Arctic ice. His comments indicate the research will lack objectivity but that is the normal these days.
The claim was based on the decline of summer sea ice extent since satellite records began in 1980 (I know, 1978, but the first two years were unreliable). It’s consistent with global warming that occurred up to 2000. Since temperatures have leveled and declined slightly, so the decline has changed. Figure 1 shows summer sea-ice conditions for 2010 (red line), with spring melt delayed and summer melt decreased. This is close to the long-term average and contradicts claims of a warm arctic summer.
Figure 1: Red line showing sea ice extent for 2010, Source.
Extinction
David Suzuki has spread more environmental misinformation than most. One involved a 2007 cross Canada tour claiming extinctions of 3 species per hour. It’s an artificial number from a theory based on false assumptions proposed by E. O Wilson. He estimated 27,000 species lost per year, which is 3 per hour. Can someone identify them?
Pacific Salmon
In 2009 Suzuki claimed “…we have witnessed decades of decline for diverse sockeye populations from the Fraser Watershed, some of which are now on the brink of extinction.”
The 2010 sockeye salmon run was the largest in almost 100 years and Suzuki is silent. He’s too busy on a book tour promoting his false legacy. His real legacy is destroyed economies, lost jobs and hardship for people, anxious children and weakened communities.
Exploiting false data on salmon and extinction is a family legacy because his daughter, a keynote speaker at the 1992 Rio Conference organized by Maurice Strong, master of misinformation and economic destruction, made them the centre of her presentation.
Hurricanes
Predictions about more and stronger hurricanes are another bust. IPCC has been completely wrong. Figure 2 is a plot of Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) and shows how it has decreased.
Figure 2: ACE levels from 1970 to 2010, Source.
It’s a level of failure to cause termination of the program or at least of the people involved anywhere else. How much money have insurance companies gouged from the public with these false threats? Insurance giant Swiss Re has sponsored documentaries and actively promoted global warming.
They even appeared before Congress with Dr Paul Epstein, supposed expert from Harvard Medical School, pushing global warming. Epstein said, “The intense weather extremes associated with warming of the atmosphere and oceans create conditions favorable to ‘clusters’ of disease outbreaks.” This comment is based on the inaccurate IPCC Reports. It’s time to ask these people what they have to say now. Have Swiss Re reduced premiums for hurricane insurance? Has Epstein issued a retraction?
Polar Bears
Suzuki, Al Gore, and environmental groups have exploited emotions and fears about polar bears. False stories about them drowning, being malnourished and in danger of extinction flooded the media. The ice isn’t melting and polar bear numbers are increasing, but it’s never about facts. To suppress the facts, world polar bear expert Mitch Taylor, who has lived and researched in the high arctic for over 30 years, was told not to attend a meeting in Copenhagen of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, set up under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission, because he questioned the science of global warming.
Inuit leaders fought US attempts to have polar bears listed as endangered with accompanying trade restrictions. President of Canada’s Inuit Mary Simon said, “I don’t understand, and many Inuit don’t understand to this day why the US is so intent on actively pursuing the implementation of highly restrictive protections on Polar Bear at the expense of Inuit, despite the fact that the species is one of the most managed species in world and is nowhere near being threatened with extinction,” “This is a direct attack on our rights, culture, hunting practices, conservation and management agreements, and local economies as an Indigenous peoples of the Arctic.”
Most don’t know the economic value of the polar bear to the Inuit. “The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a common pool resource that contributes to both the subsistence and monetary aspects of the Nunavut mixed economy through its use as food, the sale of hides in the fur trade, and sport hunt outfitting.”
But the polar bear is not endangered. A report appeared recently about the Churchill region, the area where starving bears were previously reported.
“If the summer season is any indication of what we have in store for us, this October and November there will be prodigious numbers of polar bears in the Churchill region. Bears frequently can be seen in summer, though not normally in the numbers we have seen this year.”
Accountability
Leaders of environmental groups and all who cry wolf demand accountability from everyone else. Now it’s their turn after which they should be banished. Preferably to the high arctic, with no access to the world, so they cannot continue their destructive falsehoods.
