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Global warming skepticism

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Believers in Global warming assert that

Global warming skeptics maintain some or all of these assertions are not proven or not correct.

Prominent skeptics

\nThe most visible critics of the global warming theory from within the scientific community have been \n* Patrick Michaels from the Department of Environmental Services at the University of Virginia\n* Robert Balling [1] of Arizona State University\n* Sherwood Idso of the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory [1] \n* S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia\n* Richard Lindzen of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.\n

Information Council on the Environment (ICE)

\nMichaels, Balling and Idso all lent their names in 1991 to the scientific advisory panel of the Information Council on the Environment (ICE), an energy industry public relations group.\n

Petitions and attacks on them

Global warming skeptics also dispute the claim (or relevance to reality) that a "growing consensus" of scientists support the global warming hypothesis, and that even the IPCC report authors do not all support the reports [1]. In fact, they say, the consensus of those who expend the effort to comment is moving in the opposite direction. To support this claim, the website of S. Fred Singer's Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) lists four separate petitions: According to SEPP associate Candace Crandall, these petititions show that "the number of scientists refuting global warming is growing."[1] However, people who have examinated the petitions challenge that conclusion, pointing out that:
  1. The 1992 "Statement by Atmospheric Scientists" is more than a decade old and only has 46 signers.
  2. The Heidelberg Appeal actually does not say anything about global warming.
  3. Most of the signers of the Leipzig Declarations are non-scientists or lack credentials in the specific field of climate research.
  4. Many of the signers of the Oregon Petition are also non-scientists or lack relevant scientific backgrounds.
Similar lists by supporters of global warming have received similar challenges.

Global warming and carbon dioxide

\nOne argument against global warming questions the contention that rising levels of carbon dioxide correlate with -- and thus have caused -- global warming.\n* Note that correlation is not causation. Always having a dime in my pocket when it rains does not mean that dimes cause rain.\n* Studies indicate that warming releases additional carbon dioxide.\n* Water vapor (the major greenhouse gas) might enhance the greenhouse behavior of carbon dioxide, so warming would be based on a combination of at least those two gases rather than only on carbon dioxide.\n

Global warming and solar activity

\nAnother argument against man-made global warming (or anthropogenic global warming) is the discovery that changes in worldwide average temperature correlate closely with the intensity of solar radiation.\nThe correlation between global temperature ups and downs, noted by "skeptics", is much closer than the claimed correlation between global temperature rise and carbon dioxide claimed by "warmers".\n

Global warming and the Kyoto Protocol

\nSkeptics, believing that carbon dioxide levels have no significant impact on global temperatures, feel that support for the Kyoto Protocol is entirely misguided.\n

Global Warming and Future Technology

\nSome skeptics believe that even if global warming is real and man-made, no action need be taken now because future scientific advances will remedy the problem before it becomes serious.\n

References

\n*Committee on the Science of Climate Change, National Research Council, "Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions," (National Academies Press, 2001)\n

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