Letters

Climate change

J. Holder

Contents - Jun 2008 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Man-made climate change: a moral issue - Michael Gilchrist Education: Pope: Catholic education must uphold Church teachings - Pope Benedict XVI News: The Church Around the World Human Rights: China: Olympic rings - or shackles? - Babette Francis Jury still out on global warming - Cardinal George Pell Christianity 'lite' with all the hard parts unmentioned: a spiritual dead-end - Alan Roebuck FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH: Reasons for believing in God - Frank Mobbs Climate Debate: Man-made climate change is a reality - Dr Alex Gardner Climate Debate: Man-made climate change: politics not science - Peter Finlayson Letters: Climate change - J. Holder Letters: Sceptical - Bernard Hoey Letters: Scandal - Don Gaffney Letters: Contraception - Tim Coyle Letters: Baptism formula - Franklin J. Wood Letters: Adoptions - Tom King Letters: Abortion and Martin Luther King - Brian Harris Letters: Ordinary Magisterium - Peter D. Howard Letters: Infallible? - Frank Mobbs Letters: Priests needed in Ballarat - Jenny Bruty Books: RATZINGER'S FAITH: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, by Tracey Rowland - Michael E. Daniel (reviewer) Books: FR WERENFRIED: A Life, by Joanna Bogle - Michael E. Daniel (reviewer) Letters: FEMINISM V. MANKIND: Selected Essays - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: Books available from AD2000 Books Reflection: Benedict XVI on the mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ - Pope Benedict XVI

I was interested to read Peter Finlayson's well reasoned paper on climate change (March AD2000). It is appropriate that it appears just when we see an international awakening of scientists who are becoming vocal in opposition to the UN's IPCC and media-driven 'consensus' on man-made global warming.

The IPCC's fears are based entirely on computer models which can be programmed for any desired result. Dr Jim Renwick, a lead author of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report (4AR), publicly admitted the computer models predicting a coming catastrophe may not be completely reliable: 'Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well.'

The IPCC computer models have consistently predicted warming since 1990. In the real world, however, temperatures have not increased since the major warming of the El Ni–o year of 1998. Since then temperatures have dropped, plateaued and over the past six to seven years the planet has been getting colder.

In the 12 months from January 2007 to January 2008, global temperature fell by 0.6-0.7 degrees C, one of the largest temperature movements in recorded history. Yet this cooling has been accompanied by a further increase in carbon dioxide emissions.

The IPCC acknowledges the cooling and argued in 4AR that increased volcanic eruptions and a decline in the sun's activity were responsible. This is a sign of sheer desperation as the IPCC has for years denied that solar activity is a significant cause of recent climate change and there have been no recent volcanic eruptions of global importance.

Earth may start to warm again - we are, after all, emerging from the Little Ice Age. But previous warmings were faster and greater than the 0.5 degrees C increase of the last 150 years and temperatures were higher during the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods when industrial carbon dioxide emissions were absent.

If greenhouse gases were the primary cause of warming, according to classic greenhouse theory, the rate of warming in the earth's troposphere would be two to three times greater than at the surface and all of the UN models show a distinct greenhouse 'signature'. However, satellite and balloon data tell us the rate of warming is higher at the surface. Observational data therefore show beyond reasonable doubt that greenhouse gas has not been the major cause of any recent warming.

J. HOLDER (DR)
Canterbury, Vic

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 21 No 5 (June 2008), p. 14