Letter to the editor: Evidence shows global warming is no hoax

Brent McCarthy published a letter last week in The Jamestown Sun claiming that global warming was “a delusion or a hoax.” Note that he states nowhere his unique qualifications and background to comment on this issue. Last year, pollsters from the University of Illinois asked 3,146 scientists from American geoscience departments two questions: “Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?” Ninety percent of those interviewed agreed with the first part of the query, and 82 percent with the second. Ninety-seven percent of climatologists, who specialize in the study of long-term weather patterns, concurred that human action played a major role.

The only minority who disagreed with the others were petroleum engineers (47 percent), who understandably would be reluctant to admit that pollutants from their industries were partially responsible for climatic change. Many of the scientific “experts” trotted out by the enemies of the global warming theory are, in fact, petroleum scientists profoundly in disagreement with their mainstream colleagues.

Using only our current winter as proof, McCarthy dismisses all long-term historical evidence that the climate is heating up. It has done so pretty consistently since 1800, when the Industrial Revolution was entering high gear. The mean temperature of the entire Earth has risen to 0.4 degrees centigrade above the overall average for the last 2000 years. Subtracting every conceivable natural cause from the data acquired since 1800, the only possible explanation for the phenomenal increase since then remains human-generated “greenhouse gases” and atmospheric pollution.

There is compelling evidence that icecaps are melting. The entire Markham Ice Shelf in Canada broke away from land in early August, joined by two large fragments from the Serson Ice Shelf and 22 square kilometers from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf. This summer alone saw the loss of 214 square kilometers of ice shelf, some of which had remained intact for 4,500 years, That’s the equivalent of three Manhattan Islands!

Canada lost 23 percent of its ice shelf area last year, and 90 percent of the original ice shelves have vanished over the last century. Remember from your high school days how early explorers searched in vain for an ice-free “Northwest Passage” that would enable them to travel between Baffin Bay and the Bering Sea? So much ice has melted that these routes opened during the summers of 2007 and 2008.

President Barack Obama, in his inaugural address, said that his policies would be guided by science, which will be a refreshing change from the previous administration admired so much by McCarthy.

Dr. Timothy Bratton

Jamestown

Tags: global, warming, hoax, opinion