Global warming hysteria: how the pendulum has swung

It has become commonplace knowledge, and is unchallenged, that global average temperature has not increased since 1998. This corresponds to a nine-year period during which the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in contrast, did increase, and that by almost 5 per cent.

The greenhouse hypothesis - which asserts that carbon dioxide increases of human origin will cause dangerous global warming - is clearly invalidated by these data.

As if that were not enough, a leading computer modelling team has recently published a paper in Nature which acknowledges what climate rationalists (the so-called “sceptics”) have always asserted. Which is that, contrary to IPCC assessments, any human influence on global temperature is so small that it cannot yet be differentiated from natural cycles of climate change. The same modellers have even predicted (after the start of the event, of course) that cooling will now occur for at least the next few years. Mortal strike two against dangerous, human-caused warming.

At this news, the rare balanced commentaries that hitherto have been but a trickle through cracks in the monolithic dam of climate alarmism have coalesced into a steady, fissured flow, and there is an imminent likelihood of total dam collapse.

Interestingly, at the same time, the fierce discussion about the pros and cons of dangerous human-caused change that has formerly been conducted almost exclusively on the Internet (including particularly blogs and video outlets like YouTube) is starting to spread to the more mainstream press.

For instance, critical analyses of global warming science reality and policy options have recently been provided by two leading articles in the National Business Review (editorial 1; editorial 2) and others on Muriel Newman’s Centre for Political Research website and in the New Zealand Herald, Christchurch Press, NZ Farmers Weekly and the UK Telegraph.

Finally, and most belatedly of all, even radio and TV commentators are now starting to provide a broader and better balanced perspective on the global warming issue.

Nzone Tonight is a nightly news and current affairs program broadcast by Shine TV, a NZ Christian broadcaster that aims to provide a balanced and truthful review of all the day's news suitable for family viewing. In mid-April, Nzone broadcast a current affairs discussion about global warming between host Alan Lee and Professor Bob Carter. Since being posted on YouTube, this video has attracted 15,000 worldwide viewers, and during its first three weeks has become the most viewed, most discussed and most “favourited”. Among other supportive comments, one US viewer noted that “I did enjoy the respectful nature of the interview. I do wish this interview was shown on every network in this country, and at every school!”

That these events represent a deep public demand for balanced presentations of the science of climate change is indicated by another Bob Carter video clip - this time of a lecture to the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) that was posted on YouTube just over six months ago. To date this video clip has achieved more than 100,000 viewers and lists as the 14th most discussed Australian News and Politics item of all time - a remarkable result, and by far the highest ranking that a fact-based lecture has ever achieved.

Comments made on the AEF video lecture have included:

“That was a superb set of videos. Very well done, and thank you, Bob Carter. Should be compulsory viewing for everyone who sees Gore's movie. Any chance of getting (it) into all British schools?”; and

“Watching Bob Carter's presentation, which he has articulated in a no nonsense manner, I am alarmed at how the so-called environmental movement, supported by sensational journalism, are promoting such an alarmist position on CO2 emissions. It is a frightening prospect that money which could be spent on far more sensible issues may well be wasted on carbon sequestration, which apparently will have little or even no effect on climate change”.

For a science lecture to receive comments such as these, and attain such a large number of viewings, is indicative of a great public hunger for accurate, well balanced information on the science of the global warming issue.

Perhaps, at last, the time has arrived when YouTube and blog discussions will now be supplemented by mainstream newspaper, radio and TV outlets providing the balanced news and documentary programs about global warming that have been so lamentably lacking for the last ten years. Keep your eye on that dam.