GEOSCIENCE CANADA

COMMENTARYGlobal Warming: A Critiqueof the AnthropogenicModel and itsConsequences

Norman R. PatersonConsulting Geophysicist121 Louisa St. E.Thornbury, ON, Canada, N0H 2P0Email: npaterson@bell.net

SUMMARYAccording to popular belief, recentglobal warming has been caused largelyby greenhouse gases, primarily CO2,accruing in the atmosphere, and man isresponsible for most of the ~120 ppmincrease in CO2 over the last 100 years.This article cites a number of recentpeer-reviewed scientific papers, andfinds that contrary arguments by agrowing body of scientists are general-ly supported by better empirical datathan those that favour the ‘anthro-pogenic warming’ hypothesis. Thesearguments invoke the effects of solarirradiance and ocean–atmosphereinteractions, both of which have beenshown to have warming effects at leastas great as those claimed for CO2, andto be based on sound, well-understoodscientific theory. Furthermore, theglobal warming models used by theIntergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) and others have insome cases been shown to be incorrectand contrary to current temperaturestatistics. For these and other reasons,the CO2-driven, anthropogenic warm-ing hypothesis is regarded by many assuspect and lacking in empirical evi-dence. The difficulty of refuting thispopular hypothesis is exacerbated bythe IPCC’s United Nations mandate toadvise governments on the severity of

man-made global warming, a mandatethat they have followed faithfully,encouraging the emergence of a largebody of funded research that supportstheir view. This presents a problem forglobal society, as the human-causedwarming scenario diverts attentionfrom other, at least equally seriousenvironmental impacts of our industri-al society. Recently, however, thereappears to be a tilting of public opin-ion away from global warmingalarmism, which may fundamentallyaffect the direction of the climatechange debate.

SOMMAIRESelon la croyance populaire, le réchauf-fement climatique actuel aurait étécausé en grande partie par des gaz àeffet de serre, principalement le CO2s’accumulant dans l'atmosphère et,c’est l'homme qui serait à l’origine del’augmentation de ~ 120 ppm de lateneur en CO2 au cours du dernier siè-cle. Dans le présent article on cite uncertain nombre d’articles scientifiques àcomité de lecture, et on conclut quedes arguments contraires présentés parun nombre croissant de scientifiques,sont généralement soutenus par demeilleures données empiriques quecelles qui favorisent l’hypothèse d’un «réchauffement anthropogénique ». Àpartir d’une théorie scientifique bienfondée, ces arguments montrent queles effets du rayonnement solaire et desinteractions océan-atmosphère ont uneffet climatique de réchauffement aumoins aussi important que celui imputéau CO2. En outre, il a été démontréque les modèles de réchauffement de laplanète utilisés par le Groupe d'expertsintergouvernemental sur les change-ments climatiques (GIEC) et d'autressont, dans certains cas avérés erronéset en contradiction avec les statistiques

actuelles sur la température. Pour cesraisons et d'autres, nombreux sontceux qui considèrent que l’hypothèsed’un réchauffement climatique anthro-pogénique par le CO2 est sujette à cau-tion et manque de preuves empiriques.À noter qu’il est d’autant plus difficilede réfuter cette hypothèse populaireque l’Organisation des Nations Unies aconfié au GIEC le mandat de con-seiller les gouvernements sur la gravitédu réchauffement climatique anthro-pogénique, mandat dont il s’acquitteavec application, ce qui favorise l'émer-gence d'un important volume derecherches financées, qui tendent àconfirmer leur point de vue. Cela poseun problème pour l’humanité entière,en ce que le scénario d’un réchauffe-ment climatique anthropogéniquedétourne l'attention d’autres problèmesde notre société industriel qui ont desrépercussions au moins aussi graves surl'environnement. Récemment, cepen-dant, il semble y avoir un basculementde l'opinion publique qui tend à remet-tre en question l'alarmisme ambiant surle réchauffement climatique planétaire,ce qui pourrait affecter fondamentale-ment le sens du débat sur le change-ment climatique.

INTRODUCTIONThe term ‘global warming’ is common-ly used by the media to mean ‘anthro-pogenic’ global warming; that is, warm-ing caused by human activity. In thisarticle, the writer has chosen to prefix‘global warming’, where appropriate, bythe terms ‘anthropogenic or ‘human-caused’ in order to avoid confusion.

We are led today by ourmedia, governments, schools and somescientific authorities to believe that,through his CO2 emissions, man isentirely, or almost entirely, responsiblefor the modest, modulated rise in glob-

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al temperature of about 0.7° C that hastaken place over the past 100 years.We are told, and many sincere peoplebelieve, that if we continue on thispath, the planet will experience escalat-ing temperature and dangerous sea-level rise before the end of this centu-ry. Over the past 20 years or so, thishas become so much a part of ourbelief system, that to challenge it is tobe labelled a ‘denier’ and put in thesame category as a member of the FlatEarth Society. Yet, even a cursoryreview of the peer-reviewed scientificliterature will show that the popularanthropogenic global warming dogmais being questioned by hundreds ofrespected scientists. Furthermore,emerging evidence points directly toother natural phenomena as probablyhaving greater effects on global tem-peratures than can be attributed tohuman-caused CO2 emissions. The dis-proportionate scientific weightingattributed to the anthropogenic warm-ing interpretation, and the general pub-lic perception of its validity, could be aserious problem for society, as thehuman-caused global warming belief isdiverting our attention from other,more serious anthropogenic effectssuch as pollution and depletion of ourwater resources, contamination of ourfood and living space from chemicals,and diminishing conventional energyresources.

PROBLEMS WITH THE ANTHROPOGENIC MODELThe fact that the world has undergonecycles of warming and cooling hasbeen known for a very long time, butthe question as to man’s influence onclimate did not become a hot debateuntil after the mid-twentieth century,when Revelle and Seuss (1957) firstdrew attention to the possible effect ofgreenhouses gases (particularly CO2)on the earth’s temperature. Subsequentstudies pointed to the increase inatmospheric CO2 from roughly 0.025%to 0.037%, or 50%, over the past 100years. Much was made of the apparentbut crude covariance of atmosphericCO2 and global temperature, and theconclusion was drawn that man’s esca-lating carbon emissions are responsiblefor the late 20th century temperaturerise. Anxiety was rapidly raised amongenvironmentalists, and also attracted

many scientists who found ready fund-ing for studies aimed at better under-standing the problem. However, scien-tists soon encountered three importantdifficulties: i) To this date, no satisfactory expla-

nation is forthcoming as to howCO2 at less than 0. 04% of atmos-pheric concentration can make amajor contribution to the green-house effect, especially as the rela-tionship between increasing CO2and increasing temperature is adiminishing logarithmic one (Ger-lich and Tscheuschner 2009);

ii) Geological records show unequiv-ocally that past temperatureincreases have always preceded,not followed, increases in CO2; i.e.the warming could potentiallycause the CO2 increase, but notthe reverse. Studies (e.g. Petit et al.1999) have shown that over thepast 400 000 years of cyclical vari-ations, temperature rose from gla-cial values about 800 years beforeCO2 concentration increased. Aprobable explanation is that solarwarming, over a long period oftime, causes the oceans to outgasCO2, whereas cooling results inmore CO2 entering solution, asdiscussed by Stott et al. (2007).Averaged over a still longer periodof geological time, it has beenshown (Shaviv and Veizer 2003)that there is no correlationbetween CO2 and temperature; forexample, levels of CO2 were morethan twice present day values at180 Ma, at a time when tempera-ture was several degrees cooler;

iii) Other serious mistakes in analysiswere made by some scientists overthe years. Perhaps the worst ofthese (see Montford 2010 for athorough discussion) was the pub-lication of the ‘Hockey StickCurve’ (Fig. 1), a 1000-year recordof past temperature which pur-ported to show that “The 20th cen-tury is likely the warmest centuryin the Northern Hemisphere, andthe 1990s was the warmest decade,with 1998 as the warmest year inthe last 1000 years” (Mann et al.1999). This conclusion was adopt-ed by the Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change (IPCC) in its2001 report and also by Al Gore

in the movie An Inconvenient Truth.Subsequently, Mann et al.’s workhas been challenged by several sci-entists (though to be fair, it is alsosupported by some). For example,McIntyre and McKitrick (2003)amended Mann’s graph, using allavailable data and better qualitycontrol (Fig. 1), and showed thatthe 20th century is not exceptional-ly warm when compared with thatof the 15th century. However, theIPCC has continued to report asteady increase in global tempera-ture in the face of clear evidencethat average temperature hasremained roughly level globally,positive in the northern hemi-sphere and negative in the south-ern hemisphere, since about 2002(Archibald 2006; Fig. 2).

WHAT CAUSES WARMING?It is likely that the cyclical warmingand cooling of the earth results from anumber of different causes, none ofwhich, taken alone, is dominantenough to be entirely responsible. Themore important ones are solar changes(including both irradiance and magnet-ic field effects), atmosphere–oceaninteraction (including both multi-decadal climatic oscillations andunforced internal variability), andgreenhouse gases. All of these factorshave been discussed by IPCC, but thefirst two have been dismissed as negli-gible in comparison with the green-house-gas effect and man’s contribu-tion to it through anthropogenic CO2.It is claimed (e.g. Revelle and Suess1957) that the particular infraredabsorption bands of CO2 provide itwith a special ability to absorb and re-radiate the sun’s longer wavelengthradiation, causing warming of the tro-posphere and an increase in high-alti-tude (cirrus) cloud, further amplifyingthe heating process. Detailed argu-ments against this conclusion can befound in Spencer et al. (2007) and Ger-lich and Tscheuschner (2009). Thesescientists point out (among other argu-ments, which include the logarithmicdecrease in absorptive power of CO2at increasing concentrations), thatclouds have poor ability to emit radia-tion and that the transfer of heat fromthe atmosphere to a warmer body (theearth) defies the Second Law of Ther-

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modynamics. They argue that thePlank and Stefan-Boltzman equationsused in calculations of radiative heattransfer cannot be applied to gases inthe atmosphere because of the highlycomplex multi-body nature of theproblem. Veizer (2005) explains that, toplay a significant role, CO2 requires an

amplifier, in this case water vapour. Heconcludes that water vapour plays thedominant role in global warming andthat solar effects are the driver, ratherthan CO2. A comprehensive critique ofthe greenhouse gas theory is providedby Hutton (2009).

It is firmly established that the

sun is the primary heat source for theglobal climate system, and that theatmosphere and oceans modify and re-direct the sun’s heat. According toVeizer (2005), cosmic rays from outerspace cause clouds to form in the tro-posphere; these clouds shield the earthand provide a cooling effect. Solarradiation, on the other hand, producesa thermal energy flux which, combinedwith the solar magnetic field, acts as ashield against cosmic rays and therebyleads to global warming. Figures 3 and4 illustrate both the cooling by cosmicrays (cosmic ray flux, or CRF) andwarming by solar irradiation (total solarirradiance, or TSI) in the long term(500 Ma) and short term (50 years),respectively. CRF shows an excellentnegative correlation with temperature,apart from a short period around 250Ma (Fig. 3). In contrast, the recon-structed, oxygen isotope-based temper-ature curve illustrates a lack of correla-tion with CO2 except for a periodaround 350 Ma.

Other studies have highlightedthe overriding effect of solar radiationon global heating. Soon (2005) studiedsolar irradiance as a possible agent formedium-term variations in Arctic tem-peratures over the past 135 years, andfound a close correlation in bothdecadal (5–10 years) and multi-decadal(40–80 years) changes (Fig. 5). As tothe control on this variation, the indi-rect effect of solar irradiance on cloudcover undoubtedly results in modula-tions of the sun’s direct warming ofthe earth. Veizer (2005) estimated thatthe heat reflected by cloud cover isabout 78 watts/m2, compared to aninsolation effect of 342 watts/m2, amodulation of more than 25%. Thiscontrasts with an IPCC estimate of1.46 watts/m2, or about 0.5% of TSI,for the radiative effect of anthro-pogenic CO2 accumulated in the mod-ern industrial era (IPCC 2001). Veizerconcludes: “A change of cloud coverof a few percent can therefore have alarge impact on the planetary energybalance.”

In addition to solar insolationeffects, the intensity of the Earth’smagnetic field (which deflects thecharged particles that constitute cosmicrays) and associated sun-spot maximaare correlated with historic periods ofglobal warming such as the Medieval

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Figure 1. Temperature change over last six centuries according to Mann et al.(1999), and recalculated by McIntyre and McKitrick (2003).

Figure 2: Lower tropospheric temperature from 1979 to 2006, as measured byNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites. The peak in 1998coincides with an El Niño maximum. Compiled by Archibald (2006); data fromUAH MSU, http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2.

Climate Optimum (Fig. 6), and typical-ly occur mid-way between ice ages(Veizer 2005). Solar magnetic minimahave accompanied global cooling, suchas occurred during the Little Ice Agebetween 1350 and 1850 A.D. A proxyfor sunspot activity prior to the start of

telescope observations in 1610 can bereconstructed from the abundance ofcosmogenic 10Be in ice cores fromAntarctica and Greenland (Miletsky etal. 2004).

Global temperature oscilla-tions have been evident in both geo-

logic and recent times, with periodsvarying from a few years (mostly solarand lunar driven) up to 120 millionyears (galactic and orbital influences)(Plimer 2009). In addition, ocean–atmosphere interactions are implicatedin the control of some shorter-periodclimatic oscillations. For example,McLean et al. (2009) have studied theEl Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO),a tropical Pacific ocean–atmospherephenomenon, and compared the indexof intensity (the Southern OscillationIndex, or SOI) with global tropospher-ic temperature anomalies (GTTA) forthe 1960–2009 period (Fig. 7).McLean et al. (2009) concluded that“Change in SOI accounts for 72% ofthe variance in GTTA for the 29-yearlong record, and 68% for the 50-yearrecord”. They found the same orstronger correlation between SOI andmean global temperature, in which SOIaccounted for as much as 81% of thevariance in the tropics (Fig. 8). A delayof 5 to 7 months was deducedbetween the SOI maximum and theassociated temperature anomaly. Vol-canic influences on temperature arealso evident (Figs. 7, 8), probablycaused by the injection of sulphurdioxide into the stratosphere, where itis converted into sulphate aerosols thatreflect incoming solar radiation(McLean et al. 2009). The GTTA near-ly always falls in the year or two fol-lowing major eruptions.

Both solar irradiation andocean–atmosphere oscillations havetherefore been demonstrated to haveeffects on global temperature of atleast the same order of magnitude asthe CO2 greenhouse gas hypothesis,and these alternative mechanisms aresupported by well-documented empiri-cal data. Nevertheless, the CO2hypothesis, the theoretical basis forwhich is being increasingly challenged,remains the popular explanation forglobal warming in the public domain.

THE CONTROVERSYThe main factors that have led to heat-ed scientific controversy regarding thecause of the mild late 20th centuryglobal warming can be summarized asfollows:i) A surge of media coverage and

consequent public interest andanxiety, magnified by productions

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Figure 3. CO2, cosmic ray flux (CRF) and temperature, observed and reconstruct-ed (see text), over the last 500 million years, from Shaviv and Veizer (2003).

Figure 4. Annual variability of tropospheric temperature, compared to variationsin total solar insolation (TSI) and cosmic ray flux (CRF), after Veizer (2005). TSI isplotted right-way-up and CRF is upside down; both curves show good correlationwith temperature over the past 50 years.

such as Al Gore’s An InconvenientTruth.

ii) Fear and concern on the part ofenvironmentalists, who werealready aware of many otherharmful aspects of industrial,commercial and other humanactivities. Environmentalists,including NGOs such as Green-peace and the World WildlifeFund, exploited the open disagree-ments that existed among scien-tists as to the scale of the warmingand its impacts, disagreements thatinevitably arose because climatescience is complex and empiricaldata were in short supply until

recently. iii) The IPCC was formed in 1988 by

two organizations of the UnitedNations, the World MeteorologicalOrganization and the UnitedNations Environment Programme,to “assess...the scientific, technicaland socio-economic informationrelevant to understanding the sci-entific basis of risk of human-induced climate change”(http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings//session21/doc18.pdf). IPCC’s man-date appears to take for grantedthat man is responsible for at leasta significant part of the currentglobal warming. Because of its

political nature, the number ofsubscribing countries (currently130), and the fact that it carriesout no research of its own, defin-ing a scientifically meaningfulIPCC consensus has become analmost impossible task. Neverthe-less, IPCC has faithfully followedits guidelines in each of its fourAssessment Reports, concluding inits fourth report (IPCC 2007) that“Most of the global average warm-ing over the past 50 years is verylikely due to anthropogenic GHGincreases and it is likely that thereis a discernible human-inducedwarming averaged over each conti-nent (except Antarctica).” (author’sitalics).

Hidden behind this bold state-ment are many dissenting opinionsby scientists whose views do notappear in the reports. In fact, it isdifficult to find in the IPCC listsof authors and reviewers, anyprominent independent scientistssuch as those whose opinions arereferred to in this article. This biashas led to serious criticism of theIPCC process. The criticism culmi-nated recently in a study by theInter-Academy Council (IAC),which recommended, among otherchanges, that “The IPCC shouldencourage Review Editors to exer-cise their authority to ensure thatreviewer’s comments are adequate-ly considered by the authors andthat genuine controversies are ade-quately reflected in the report”(Inter-Academy Council 2010).

The one-sided nature of theIPCC reports, and the errors thatIPCC has since acknowledged,have cast considerable doubt onthe validity of the IPCC’s mainconclusions. For example, and asmentioned earlier also, claims byIPCC and others that 1998 was thewarmest year on record ignore thedata from 1500 and earlier, andalso fail to point out that 1998 wasthe year of strongestocean/atmospheric effect, knownas El Niño. Other errors in its cli-mate models, such as the predictedmeltdown of the Himalayan gla-ciers (Guardian, March 10, 2010),and the large number of grey (i.e.not peer-reviewed) literature

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Figure 5. Arctic TSI vs. surface-air temperature, 1875–2000, after Soon (2005).

Figure 6. Sunspot numbers, actual and reconstructed (see text), 800 to 2000 A.D.,after Veizer (2005). MCO is the Medieval Climate Optimum; O, W, S, M and D aresunspot minima, and correlate with historic cooling periods.

sources that IPCC cites, have nowbecome widely known in the pub-lic domain.

iv) Politics also plays an importantpart in the controversy, and a highvalue is placed on political correct-ness. The situation is worsenedbecause, very often, a scientificreputation or a career is at stake.Scientists, like most people, arealso reluctant to abandon a beliefthat they have held for a long time,and many scientists have workedin organisations that acceptedanthropogenic global warming as astarting point in their research pro-grams. Such persons may havefound, and even published, evi-dence that supports the idea ofdangerous human-caused warming.

It is doubly hard for such peopleto convince themselves that thereis newer and better evidence thatproves the older hypothesis to bewrong. This problem is exempli-fied by the following quotationfrom Veizer (2005), in an article inwhich he presents the case forsolar emissions being responsiblefor much of global warming:

“Personally, this last decade hasbeen a trying period due to the yearsof internal struggle between what Iwanted to believe and where theempirical record and its logic wereleading me. This article is not acomprehensive review of the alter-natives, partly because of space lim-itations, but also because the casefor the alternative has been elo-

quently argued elsewhere (e.g.IPCC). It is rather a plea for somereflection in our clamour for over-simplified beliefs and solutions inthe face of the climate conundrum.”Many scientists have been

heartened in recent years by the sup-port that has been growing around theworld for a new look at the causes ofglobal warming. Articles againstanthropogenic causes or offering dif-ferent explanations appear to thiswriter to outnumber those in support.

DISCUSSIONThe following examines various sce-narios of climate change policy andother events that may develop over thenext 5 to 10 years:i) The pressure of new science, new

data, more publications and morefrustration with bad policymakingwithin a large group of main-stream scientists may in due coursehave the effect of improving poli-cy making on climate changeissues, despite the momentumbuilt up by institutions and gov-ernments that have currently spenttens of billions of dollars in sup-port of the anthropogenic globalwarming hypothesis.

Such an outcome was alreadyapparent after the 2010 Copen-hagen Conference, at which gov-ernments had failed to committhemselves to emissions limitationtargets that would have seriouslydamaged their economies. Thelack of commitment may perhapshave been fuelled by skepticism asto IPCC’s procedures (see Inter-Academy Council 2010), or precip-itated by ‘Climategate’, the report-ed scandal at the Climate ResearchUnit (CRU) at the University ofEast Anglia, which suggested thatsenior scientific staff were deliber-ately concealing evidence that castdoubt on anthropogenic warming.(Later, three separate review pan-els, one a committee of the Britishparliament and the other two com-prising invited senior climate scien-tists, exonerated CRU of fraud,but the panels were almost unani-mous in recommending moreopenness in IPCC’s investigativeand reporting procedures.)

Change in public climate poli-

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Figure 7. SOI (Southern Oscillation Index) and GTTA (global tropospheric tem-perature anomalies) from 1960 to 2009, showing periods of volcanic activity, afterMcLean et al. (2009). The SOI used in the calculations is the standardized anomalyof the seasonal mean sea level pressure between Tahiti and Darwin, divided by thestandard deviation of the difference, multiplied by 10.

Figure 8. SOI (delayed 5 months) and tropical tropospheric temperature anomalies(Tropical TTA), with temperature data removed during periods of volcanic activity,after McLean et al. (2009).

cy could be triggered by theincreasing number of independ-ently-minded scientists, some insenior government roles, who aremaking their views regarding theweakness of the anthropogenicwarming hypothesis known topoliticians and the media. Forexample, Canada Free Press (2010)cites the case of Dr. FerencMiskolczi, a renowned astrophysi-cist who was dropped as a consult-ant by NASA for publishing a sub-stantive theoretical criticism of thegreenhouse gas hypothesis. Anoth-er example is Prof. Harold Lewis’sletter of resignation from theAmerican Physical Society (APS)(Daily Telegraph 2010). In this letter,Professor Lewis condemns theprocess adopted by APS to paintover objections by members to thesociety’s public statement on Cli-mate Change, which included theword ‘incontrovertible’ to describethe evidence for dangerous anthro-pogenic global warming. The like-ly outcome of a science-drivenrethinking of human-caused cli-mate warming is that sufficientdoubt will be raised, that new car-bon emission treaties and plans forcarbon credit trading will be puton hold indefinitely, and estab-lished systems discontinued.

ii) Recently a number of books havebeen published (e.g. Leroux 2010;Rapp 2010) that question thevalidity of computer modelling ofclimate phenomena, includingglobal warming. They point to thefact that climate changes are notthe result of “hazard or chaos”(Leroux 2010) but a complex com-bination of atmospheric, oceano-graphic and extra-terrestrial events,none of which can be measuredaccurately enough to support com-puter-based predictions. Their con-clusions cast doubt on whethergreenhouse gases have any directlink with global warming andwhether, indeed, global tempera-ture is a meaningful parameterconsidering the vast differences inthe climatic conditions of Earth’sgeographic and atmosphericregions. An increasing number ofscientists consider that the issue isnot so much one of hypothetical

risks of dangerous human-causedwarming, but rather about theknown, and often deadly, risksassociated with ongoing naturalclimate events and hazards. Theyurge the adoption of national cli-mate policies that are based uponthe known and particular climatehazards of the necessarily local(not global) geography of eachnation state. By their very nature,strategies that can cope with thedangers and vagaries of natural cli-mate change will readily cope withhuman-caused change also, shouldit ever become manifest. Thisapproach is discussed in recentbooks by Carter (2010) and Brun-ner and Lynch (2010).

iii) The major danger posed by cur-rent policies that are aimed at CO2reduction is that they divert effortsand funds that might achieve muchmore urgent and realizable envi-ronmental goals. In addition, anti-CO2 measures manifest them-selves, in the short term, in costlyenergy alternatives and CO2 remis-sion or sequestration programs.Energy conservation and marketefficiencies will, in the longer run,dictate the use of alternative ener-gy sources such as geothermal. Inthe meantime, policy makerswould be wise to continue regulat-ing the reduction of known harm-ful emissions of compounds andparticulates, and put into placeappropriate incentives for bothindustry and homeowners toreduce real pollution. But this canand should be done without incur-ring the huge expense involved inthe CO2 reduction programs nowunder consideration.

iv) Changes in public policy are nottaking place in time to preventsome jurisdictions from enactingcarbon emissions legislation, e.g.European nations and NewZealand. Elsewhere, some states inthe USA and some provinces inCanada are contemplating severeemissions limits, with the intentionof punishing offenders by levyinga tax that would be credited tocompanies adhering to their emis-sion limits. Some programs such as‘Cap and Trade’ (Ontario) and‘Emission Trading Scheme’ (Aus-

tralia) appear close to enactment,though recently (May, 2010) thePrime Minister of Australia bowedto pressure from the public andthe scientific community and putthe Australian program on hold.

v) Regarding the path of global tem-perature in the near future, histori-cal data (e.g. Khandekar et al.2005) suggest that average globaltemperature will probably continueto rise and fall, due to naturaleffects, on a cycle of about 1200–1500 years and with a departurefrom mean of about 0.5 deg C. Ifthis is the case, the warming seenin the late 20th century may resumeintermittently for up to the next300 years. In the shorter term, wecan perhaps expect a cooling overthe next 5–20 years because of aweak Solar Cycle 24 (Archibald2006) and the generally quietnature of the sun, although anactive El Niño (McLean et al.2009) and lower cosmic ray activitycould both act to counter this. Itis also possible that the peak ofwarming attained near the end ofthe 20th century will prove to cor-respond to the apex of the millen-nial solar cycle, in which case theshort-term cooling expected in thenext few years will extend there-after into the next cold phase,equivalent to the Little Ice Age.

FALLOUTSome of the wisest words on the sub-ject of global warming were uttered byPope Benedict XVI (quoted by Plimer2009):

“It is important for assessments inthis regard to be carried out pru-dently, in dialogue with experts andpeople of wisdom, uninhibited byideological pressure to draw hastyconclusions, and above all with theaim of reaching agreement on amodel of sustainable developmentcapable of sustaining the well-beingof all while respecting environmen-tal balances.” One positive outcome of the

rise and fall of human-caused globalwarming furor may be the rejection ofpost-modern science in favour of arevival of the traditional scientific cul-ture which defers strictly to empiricalfacts and experiments rather than com-

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puter models, and encourages thequestioning of accepted theory by‘thinking outside the box’. Nearly allthe great scientific breakthroughs andtruths in history have been won by therelentless application of empiricalmethodology in an atmosphere of lat-eral thinking. Skepticism is an essentialelement in the search for scientifictruth. As explained by Nield (2010):“Those who pay scant attention to his-tory often find themselves denying arevolutionary idea because ‘how can somany people have been so wrong forso long’ ”and “The number of peoplewho believe something has no bearingon its rightness”.

In 1954 the famous Canadiangeophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson abandonedhis belief that continents formed fromvolcanic island arcs, in favour of thetheory of continental drift, earlierespoused by Alfred Wegener. Wilson’senthusiasm for the new hypothesis wassuch that he became known, in somecircles, as the Father of ContinentalDrift; his reputation suffered not at all.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author acknowledges reviews byAndrew D. Miall and Bob Carter, andsome valuable suggestions from Geo-science Canada editor Reginald Wilson.

Norman Paterson is a Professional Engineerand Consulting Geophysicist with 60 years’experience in Mineral and EnvironmentalGeophysics. He obtained his Ph. D in Geo-physics at the University of Toronto in 1955,and was elected Fellow, Royal Society ofCanada in 1977. His work has taken himto 43 countries, where he has done pioneeringwork on groundwater exploration and man-agement, as well as mineral and hydrocarbonexploration. He was inducted into the Cana-dian Mining Hall of Fame in 2002.

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Received July 2010Accepted as revised January 2011

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