Global warming hoax

Energy Policy Held Hostage by Global Warming Dogma

Hans Labohm & Fred Engel


The man-made global warming hype is second to none. This hoax has survived for some twenty years and still features high on the national and international political agendas given the views recently given by President Obama. The subject still seems to enjoy broad support among some members of the scientific community, politics, part of the business sector, international institutions as well as the media and the public at large. Nevertheless, it is really a great amount of ado about nothing at all.

In promoting the global warming scare, the media stubbornly stigmatize carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant. Apparently, those who promulgate that idea have forgotten what they have been taught at school. After all, carbon dioxide plays a crucial role in sustaining life. Without it the earth would be a dead planet. CO2 is indispensable for plants, animals and people to flourish. Consequently, environmentalists should actually love CO2. But because of a relentless flood of misinformation about CO2, portraying it as the culprit of an imminent climate disaster, they don’t.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) acts as the world’s unique provider of knowledge on climate change to governments. It has narrowed down the definition of climate change to man-made climate change, mainly caused by the anthropogenic emission of CO2 from burning fossil fuels. From a scientific point of view this is not just peculiar, it is fundamentally untenable.

Once every four or five years, the IPCC takes stock of the peer-reviewed scientific literature in the climate field, which results in reports of thousands of pages, that no policymaker is able to digest. Therefore, it also publishes a more easily accessible summary for policymakers of a few tens of pages, which is supposed to present the crux of the findings of the underlying reports. However, the summary is not a purely scientific document, but rather a political document, because it has to be approved line by line by people, who do not act as pure scientists, but more importantly, who also have to take account of the views of the governments they represent.

The IPCC consists of three working groups. Working Group I deals with the physical science basis. Working Group II focuses on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Finally, Working Group III reports on mitigation of climate change. It should be underlined that the Working Groups II and III, take the conclusions of Working Group I for granted. It will be clear that if Working Group I would prove to be wrong, all the work of the other two Groups will be pretty pointless.

The IPCC’s quasi monopoly position is quite unusual. In many instances and particularly in science, we value "second opinions" on matters which are of vital importance to us. But in the field of climate science dissenting views from thousands of eminent and well-qualified scientists have been systematically ignored by governments, even when they came from experts who are attached to the most prestigious universities and scientific institutions in the world.

Many national governments and scientific institutions which are dealing with various aspects of climate change, are working on the adjustment of their national policies in line with the findings of the IPCC, presuming that climate change will be the major challenge of the future. Like the IPCC’s Working Groups II and III, they do not dispute the outcome of the findings of Working Group I. They just slavishly accept the man-made global warming dogma and act accordingly. In doing so, prevention of climate change gets an overarching priority, which is supposed to permeate into every relevant policy area, thereby pervading every nook and cranny of the tissue of our societies and, ultimately, inducing profound changes of our economies and the life styles of our citizens.

Perhaps more than any other policy field, energy policy will have to bear the brunt of the ‘fight’ against climate change. For many years already, it has been held hostage to the global warming dogma, the latter seeking a transition to a sustainable future of the world economy, without CO2.

Traditionally, energy policy has been aiming at affordable prices and security of supply. Today these objectives have to give way to reductions of CO2 emissions, since climate policy dictates the promotion of solar and wind power. But these alternatives are far more expensive and far less reliable than conventional energy sources, including nuclear.

All this implies economic retreat, including a lower standard of living with high price levels for fossil fuels and electricity. It goes without saying that this would put the economy in a tailspin, creating even more uncertainty for the population and turn our current recession into an endless depression.

Why is it that people don’t resist this illusory climate behemoth? The answer is clear: 20 years of misleading climate propaganda has suppressed critical thinking about the issue, even among some scientists.

As things stand today, it is quite unfortunate that the great majority of the population has no clue whatsoever that the global warming dogma, as promoted by the IPCC as well as Al Gore and his acolytes, has been convincingly falsified. The dogma is just not supported by facts, observations and measurements. Consequently, it is belief but not science.

Perhaps the most comprehensive and most authoritative critique of the man-made global warming paradigm can be found in the report: ‘Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate’. It has been a common effort of dozens of eminent scientists, coordinated by Dr. Fred Singer, the well-known American climatologist. The report, which has been published by the Heartland Institute, can be downloaded from the Internet.

One picture can explain more than a thousand words. The graph below shows (i) satellite measurements of the worldwide average temperature of the lower troposphere, (ii) measurements of the surface temperature of the earth, and (iii) a constant rise in the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. All figures are taken from official sources. The temperature curves look pretty similar. While CO2 goes up, they wobble up and down with sharp declines in 1998 - 1999 and since 2007. If CO2 (irrespective of its origin: natural (96%) or man-made (4%)) would be a major climate forcing, it should be visible in this graph. As a matter of fact, it isn’t. The complete lack of any correlation between temperatures and CO2 is striking.




Unfortunately, this picture, which defies the man-made global warming hypothesis, is sorely lacking in all ‘official’ publications. What would happen if, for instance, companies would withhold such a crucial piece of information in their reports to shareholders? They would be taken to court – and rightly so.

Isn't it about time to substitute facts for beliefs?

Hans Labohm is a Dutch independent economist and author. Together with Dick Thoenes and Simon Rozendaal, he co-authored ‘Man-Made Global Warming: Unravelling a Dogma’. He is an expert reviewer of the IPCC.
Frederik Engel is a retired American executive. He has an abiding interest in two of our country's most challenging subjects, i.e. energy and global warming.

How to throw away a good country

Re: Geert Wilders 2/8/2009

How to throw away a decent world.

Recently, a stalwart and historic member nation of the Western Democratic coalition, the Netherlands, one with a long history of tolerance and common sense, decided to breach one of the most basic tenets of democratic governance, "Freedom of Speech". Consequently, this development just adds to the possibility that Western civilization as we knew it, may indeed face its demise before long. For some time now the USA has become similarly ready to forbid some of our speech freedoms. Little worse could possibly befall our world if this were to happen, barring our total physical destruction.

Some time ago a rather well-known Dutch politician, named Geert Wilders, started a campaign to alert his countrymen to the serious potential dangers inherent in the ever growing presence of Middle Eastern people. Unfortunately, Mr. Wilders has done himself no favors by delivering his messages in a very stern, often un-diplomatic manner which caused some members of the Dutch parliament to try to have him expelled from his function. As a consequence, the government was instantly faced with the fact that "freedom of speech" is very much part of Dutch political life and history, just as it is in the USA, and refused to assent to the request. But the incident made Mr. Wilders much more politically visible, including a visit to the USA. A long Court case ensued and just recently Mr. Wilders was vindicated and restored to his Party's leadership role.

To impugn Mr. Wilders for making critical remarks at the address of the many practitioners of radical Islamism is illegal under our code of law as well. It may well have seemed offensive to the extremely thin-skinned Islamic radicals it is easy to forget a few things in the hullabaloo created by this incident.

These uninvited radical Islamic immigrants in the Netherlands not only became even more offensive, critical and abusive themselves to Jews, Hindus, Christianity and our whole western civilization. Millions of these people have willingly migrated into western Europe during the past 40 years under the guise of various professed reasons or excuses but once settled they actually have done precious little to demonstrate their interest in assimilating our western culture. They like using the Dutch social provisions and financial support structure but not the local work ethic. Yet they are well aware that they now have the right to worship the religion of their choice without impediment. But, with the exception of a few individuals they have just become a loud, insolent political force in many European host countries, the governments of which have not had the courage nor conviction to deal quickly and effectively with this threat to their own political and legal systems and their own political stability.

Strangely, it appears that European politicians in particular seem to have lost touch with their own western culture of tolerance, hard work and respect for people to be able to live fruitful and peaceful lives. These politicians have become more and more intimidated by a group of radical Islamic interlopers whose objective is completely counter to what western culture is all about. Those people insist that their host countries allow them to do whatever their version of the "Q'uran" demands of them which is to live under their own set of religious laws known as Sharia while ignoring the local system of laws and civility. They claim the right to insult anything and anyone who says or does something that offends them while they allow themselves the right to kill, maim, abuse and destroy anything western that gets in their way.

I believe we have observed this cancerous spectacle long enough in the western world to know that this must be stopped quickly or western civilization will have entered its last century just a few years ago. Let's not forget that if a cancer isn't treated promptly and effectively it will overwhelm its victim.

All the experience, knowledge, convictions, spirit, commitments and sacrifices that have made Western civilization the magnet of many millions of people for hundreds of years, now needs to take a cold bath and come to its senses.

Except for a few courageous and critical Muslims who have sought refuge in the West
over the years to escape certain death in their homelands, nothing much of cultural, educational or spiritual value has emanated from the Middle Eastern countries for a very long time. If the western world had not discovered and developed their oil bonanza the Arab countries would still be camel riding Bedouins today. As it is, the current problem could become a conflict of cultures.

Oil has made all the difference in this conflict by financing the originally small group of King Saud's Wahabbi tribe radicals. During the past 7 or so decades their poisonous, militant, anti-Western and "anti-everybody who's not a Muslim culture of death" version of the original 8th century Quran, has now become a major threat to our civilization.

Mr. Wilders merely used his freedom of speech from his high office in the government to say the obvious things: "enough is enough, we need to return these misbehaving, unwanted, disloyal people (disloyal to their freely chosen western environments) to the Middle East and brook no negotation of the subject". Europe, and actually every western country that has a radical Islamist problem, should do the same thing. We need to recapture our own cultural heritage before it drowns in a radical Islamic tsunami.

There may well be some political and economic repercussions as a result of executing such a program but the Middle East needs to sell its oil to maintain its own operations, hence a common ground can undoubtedly be found to make it all happen. Once the radicals have been removed from the scene, the remaining Muslims should be willing to commit their loyalty to the Western country of their choice and residence, learn the local language and its social rules very well in order to seek the shortest path to full assimilation and citizenship.

If we fail to accomplish this, western civilization probably will be in jeopardy. That's what Mr. Wilders seems to be trying to tell his landsmen but they are not listening very well. The same is true for other countries which need to pay serious attention to this issue for their own respective sakes. In sum, the worst thing the Dutch government did under the circumstances was to prostitute its own sacred rules, laws and history by prosecuting Mr. Wilders for trying to save Western Civilization from itself. For shame!!

Now looking at the problem from Mr. Wilders' position to get his point of view across to the public and particularly to the media and politicians it seems to me that he should try to become more educational rather than confrontational. Facts, historical and political, will prevail where opinion fails. He needs to illuminate the critical nature of the problem of radical Islamism in the western world more fully and he needs to formulate an effective and credible response to it. That strikes me as a first priority, explaining in some meaningful depth the historic growth of this dangerous phenomenon. The weakened stance of original Islamic radicalism was first revived in the 14th century by a desire on the part of some fundamentalists that Islam should go back to its 7th century basics. The issue was allegedly first documented by Ahmad ibn 'Abd al-Halim Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328) and subsequently taken up by the Wahhabis (King Saud's tribe) and others. The message Mr. Wilders is attempting to convey to the public is indeed a painful one in its consequences for our western world and therefore needs to be delivered completely and persuasively but not in the manner of a loud accusatory ramble.

Only solid historic facts together with their logical political implications must be presented to make the public realize the dangers we are facing. All Western governments need to accept and prepare for the difficult task of permanently removing the undesirable elements from its midst and work to regain their own cultural inheritance. Failure to face up to these 2 requirements would mean much more than the end of western culture.