Cows Farting... Forests Disappearing?
my son's sixth-grade Toast Master's speech

Is Global Warming A Fact? ~ Environmental Myths

Is pollution a cause of global warming? Absolutely not! And I will tell you why. Lets assume for a moment that global warming were true. Pollution as a cause of global warming is improbable due to the work done by scientist Paul Crutzen, a Nobel Prize winner, and meteorologist Bert Bolin, the former Chairman of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or, IPCC. Their combined work, which can be found in the peer-reviewed scientific journal – the New Scientist, showed that there is a thin layer of smog protecting our cities and the planet from possible global warming. (The layer stops the sun from overheating these concrete metropolises which would have raised the temperature to a higher – more dangerous – level.) Another example would be that of a volcanic eruption. One medium sized eruption can spew more harmful chemicals into our atmosphere than the entire history of mans “polluting” the planet. In fact, according to Vice-President Al Gore, cows farting are just as dangerous an impact on earth as humans. As humorous as that may sound, taxpayers (on the behest of Gore) spent millions and millions of dollars to fund the study that found that out.

Now that you know how pollution can “benefit” us, what are your thoughts about drilling for oil in Alaska? Like me, you have probably heard that it is bad for the environment and wildlife, right? One example of the benefit drilling has in Alaska is the quintupling of caribou on and around these drilling sites. Wildlife is thriving rather than dying off. Another popular myth is that of the Amazon rainforest. Hollywood stars and musicians of fame mention that the forests are being depleted at an astounding rate. For instance, William Shatner, Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame, mentioned in a National Geographic video that, “rainforests [are] being cleared at the rate of 20 football fields per minute.” If this were truly the case, the forests would have been completely wiped out years ago. In fact, the co-founder and long-time director of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, said:

“All these save-the-forests arguments are based on bad science…. They are quite simply wrong… [Phillip Stott and I] found that the Amazon rainforests is more than 90% intact. We flew over it and met all the environmental authorities. We studied satellite pictures of the entire area.”

Phillip Stott, who has 30 years of studying tropical forests under his belt as well as being professor of biogeography at London University mentioned that, “there are now still – despite what humans have done – more rainforests today than there were 12,000 years ago.” In fact, these rain forests are only about twelve thousand years old. What you rarely hear in social study books is the fact that old-growth trees use slightly more oxygen than they produce. It is the younger, faster growing trees that are planted when the older ones are cut down that produce the oxygen our planet needs. Making the 2.7 million square mile rainforest off limits would actually be hurting our planet rather than helping it.

You must keep in mind that weather and climate changes every second, of every minute, of every day, of every week, of every year, of every decade, of every century, and so on. There is no such thing as a stable, or “sustainable,” climate. Temperature is accordingly never static; it is always either rising or falling. There is also proof that it is actually getting colder, and temperatures are lower than it they were 30 years ago. In fact, at the very first Earth Day, held in April 22, 1970, the topic was one of global freezing, and not global warming! Books and articles by leading scientists just 30 years ago were all getting taxpayer money to frighten us into thinking that the world was going to die a cold death, soon. Now it’s the exact opposite.

Another myth that has resulted from the global warming scare is that of the polar ice caps melting. On august 19, 2000, the front page of the New York Times featured a picture of the North Pole; the accompanying news story said:

“The North Pole is melting. The thick ice that that has for ages covered the Artic Ocean at the pole has turned to water… something that has presumably never before seen by humans, and is more evidence that global warming may be real and already affecting the climate.”

Oops!! Ten days later the Times apologized, saying it, “misstated the normal conditions of the sea ice there. A clear spot has probably opened at the pole before, scientists say, because about 10 percent of the Arctic Ocean is clear of ice in a typical summer.” But by then the Washington Post, USA Today, Associated Press, National Public Radio, American TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS), Canadian TV and papers in London had repeated the story. NBC Nightly News talked about “a mile-wide stretch of water where ice should be.” CNN said the ice cap “is losing its ice.”

The point here is to show how quickly bad science can get into the publics mind. An example of good science can be found in the January 2002, journal Science, which published the findings of scientists who had been measuring the vast West Antarctic ice sheet. The researchers found that the ice sheet is growing thicker, not, in fact, melting. The journal Nature published similar findings by scientist Peter Doran and his colleagues at the University of Illinois. Rather than using the U.N.'s computer models, the researchers took actual temperature readings and discovered temperatures in the Antarctic have been getting slightly colder – not warmer – for the last 30 years.

Last year my social-studies book mentioned a large group of scientists that came together to say global warming in indeed a fact. What the book was referencing is an IPCC meeting of 1,600 scientists. What the book failed to mention was that in 1998, 17,000 scientists (including more than 2000 of the world's leading climatologists, meteorologists and planetary / atmospheric scientists) signed a petition circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, saying, in part,

“[That] there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate.”

Time magazine said global warming is, “a greater threat than anything but nuclear holocaust, or [the earth] getting hit by an asteroid.” When 20/20 reporter John Stossle read that quote to IPCC members Sally Balloonas (a Harvard Astrophysicist), Richard Linsen (of M.I.T.), Pat Michaels (of the University of Virginia), and John Christie (who measures the earth’s atmosphere and temperature for NASA), they all agreed that it was “bad pulp fiction” (dealing with sensational subjects).

I want to end this topic with a question as to why all this “bad science” and myth gets into our social study books and the media. I will allow Patrick Moore, who you’ll remember is the co-founder of Green Peace, to answer this important query. He said:

“I now find that many environmental groups have drifted into self-serving cliques with narrow vision and rigid ideology…. many environmentalists are showing signs of elitism, left-wingism, and downright eco-fascism. The once politically centrist, science-based vision of environmentalism has been largely replaced with extremist rhetoric. Science and logic have been abandoned and the movement is often used to promote other causes such as class struggle and anti-corporatism. The public is left trying to figure out what is reasonable and what is not.”

I do hope you side with me in seeing the importance of rejecting Global Warming and other myths. If not I advise you to study this subject for your own sake, and sake of our planet.