Time to focus on cause of climate change, not effect

Let’s say you are in a hurry to get to work for an important client meeting. You go outside and your car won’t start, Because of this you will miss your meeting and might even lose your job. This is a classic example of “cause and effect.”

The “cause” of the problem is either your car is out of gas or the battery is dead. The ”effect” is that your life is suddenly turned upside down with terrible consequences all because your car failed to get you to work.

As with any serious scientific debate, any discussion of “global warming” aka “climate change” should focus on the cause, not the effect. If this is so, then why is there so much emphasis placed by alarmists on endangered polar bears, diminishing glaciers, record-breaking temperatures and rising sea levels when these are just consequences of changes to the environment?

The only reason I can figure is that there is no credible scientific basis for their claim (that mankind is 100 percent responsible for climate change) and they rely instead on fear which we all know is a powerful political and economic weapon, especially when they get naive schoolchildren involved.

A serious scientific debate must zero in on the cause to be meaningful just as complaining about missing a meeting solves nothing whereas putting gas in the tank of your car or replacing a dead battery will.

When their message and conclusions are challenged, alarmists wave their “settled science” card to deflect serious questions about the climate temperature data that forms the basis of their argument (some of which has been found to be unscientifically altered to fit their agenda not only at NOAA and NASA but at similar government agencies in England and Australia). Besides, fluctuating temperatures are an effect of underlying causes and thus not germane to the debate. Saying a consensus of scientists support their claims is like taking a poll among foxes in a chicken coop to see if any of the hungry carnivores have qualms about what to have for lunch. Indeed, there are many climate scientists worldwide (most of whom receive no government funding unlike the alarmists) who disagree with the “consensus” but whose voices and scientific papers have been suppressed by the latter. (Space prevents me from listing specific examples but internet searches will confirm this claim).

Many factors affect the Earth’s climate: volcanic eruptions, solar activity, water vapor, marsh gases, releases of trapped gases from the sea floor and from the oceans plus gaseous emissions from living organisms from insects to elephants. There is little that humankind can do to alter the consequences of these natural occurrences except adapt to the environmental changes like the rest of the animal and plant species. The contribution of human (anthropogenic) consumption of fossil fuels to the naturally occurring “greenhouse gasses” is what the debate is really all about.

So what is the actual percentage contribution of the latter which causes “climate change”? Water vapor accounts for 95 percent of the greenhouse effect and yet most alarmists conveniently and purposely leave this vital cause out of their equations and charts. The reason is that 99.999 percent of all water vapor comes from natural sources that can’t be taxed. The “flat earth” — oh, I’m sorry — I meant the “climate alarmists” conveniently focus instead on CO2, which is a minor contributor to climate change but one greenhouse gas which they argue is increasing measurably (depending on how they manipulate the numbers) above natural levels because of human activity.

In desperation, the alarmists try to distinguish between natural and human-produced CO2, the latter being much more dangerous, of course. Come on folks, carbon dioxide is the same regardless of the source, as Dr. Ed Berry points out in a recent publication. A report by geocraft.com summarizing government data shows human activity causes only a negligible 0.28 percent (or less depending on how the numbers are compiled) of the greenhouse effect when properly taking water vapor into account. So who is deceiving the public? Focusing on CO2 while ignoring water vapor is like saying guns cause 100 percent of all human fatalities.

I would love to see a public debate between experts in climate science to confirm, once and for all, just one thing: What is the real percentage of greenhouse gases that are anthropogenic (the only part that we can do anything about) and what percent is naturally occurring? And any formal debate should exclude prejudiced moderators from the mainstream media. (We saw the folly of that in previous presidential debates).

Why are the beneficiaries of taxpayer-funded climate programs so afraid to participate in such a formal debate that once and for all could determine if there is indeed a global-warming crisis or a massive hoax? The answer should be obvious. In my opinion, the risk of losing the funding of “green” government programs will mean the lavish, jet-setting lifestyles of the hucksters behind the scam would dry up and they would all have to look for real jobs.

Merlette is a resident of Bigfork.