I have heard that the issue of climate change being caused by man is a “settled science” or is not debatable because thousands of papers have been submitted telling us that many scientists believe that it is true. My Philosophy 1a class told me that begging the question or using the bandwagon approach to an argument was not valid. Man-caused climate change has become a political opinion that is believed in like a religion rather than a scientific examination and discovery. Science is not a belief system but a series of testing, questioning and retesting to arrive at speculation, which may become theory. Climate change and its causes relating to man will never become more than theory because its ultimate test would be to remove humans for a thousand years and follow the changes in climate. It is as stupid as it sounds, but so is the absolute belief in a theory that is based on computer models rather than scientific examination. Our local weather is given to us based on the same computer models, and usually the USA model differs from the European model.
Warming of the earth has not happened as predicted in the last few years and that is because the computer models that made the predictions were faulty. A molecule (CO2, e.g.) that reflects radiated heat does so in all directions and would reflect heat from the sun as well as the heat of insulation from the earth with a resulting effect of cooling rather than heating the earth. This reflection of heat radiation has had little or no effect during the past seventeen years, which blows apart the idea of it causing any great climate change.
In the year 1900, CO2 was determined to be at 290 parts per million (ppm) with a sample taken on Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Another sample taken at the same place in the year 2000 yielded 369 ppm of CO2. The population of the World was 1.6 billion people in 1900 and 6 billion people in 2000. It is very apparent that man has caused the increased CO2 concentration. He has done it by breathing rather than burning fossil fuels. The atmosphere has healed itself very well during this period, and I expect it will continue to do so in the future.
The three causes of climate change that we have seen in the past are 1) Wobble of the earth on its axis causing changing angles at which the poles receive solar radiation, 2) Solar flares that greatly increase the amount of radiation emitted by the sun, and 3) Volcanic eruptions that fill the earth’s atmosphere with ash, which in the past has caused cooling by blocking the sun’s radiation. Stopping the use of fossil fuels is still necessary because they are finite and will be needed in future generations for their chemical value. If we could do some planning beyond the reelection cycle of government officials, we might be able to accomplish this.