Don Polson The way I see it: More nails in the global warming coffin - Red Bluff Daily News

Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988, is a past president of the Tehama County Association of Realtors, licensed since 1994. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com. ( DN- )

Let's consider more of the disconnected arguments and fallacious assertions that have come our way from the global warming/climate change alarmists.

First, they like to define the debate, they're "realists" while we on the other side are derisively called "denialists."

Skeptic is the appropriate term, and it should put us in the mainstream of lay and scientific thought on issues of scientific nature.

It is simply undeniable that any scientific contention is theory until all testable, provable questions and critiques are put to peer review, independent testing and analysis. I'm all for that process. Skepticism must prevail as long as any given theory retains any rational basis for doubt.

Any scientific theory must also be falsifiable, meaning that if a process is producing consistent results (suggesting it holds up to scrutiny), the counter argument must be provable: changing the process or variables will change the result. If a+b+c=d, then changing a, b or c will not produce d. This principle speaks to the most egregious aspect of the theory of human-caused global warming/climate change (or agw for "anthropogenic global warming): nothing that happens, will happen or has ever happened disproves it. Computer models have been shown to produce the same "warmist" results no matter the inputted data.

Think about it and you'll realize that you never hear any of the advocates express the slightest ability to consider that if x, y, or z

were to happen or had ever happened, it would undermine or disprove their theory. Instead, from the beginning, around the time of Al Gore's fanciful movie, the agw advocates have fabricated data to support their theory, and manipulated or buried data that would clearly undermine it.

I will provide examples of all this, but first let's dismiss some of their assertions against the skeptics: Supposedly, there is a scientific "consensus" among those with the credentials, training and expertise on the subject. It turns out that the so-called (and relatively limited number of) experts in the U.N.'s IPPC, the source of all such "consensus," are not universally qualified in the relevant sciences some being of political or sociological background.

Polling of scientists shows a large divide on the issue.

It also turns out that there are literally tens of thousands of degreed scientists that have publicly signed petitions expressing their doubt in the agw theory. Sixty of them signed a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister a while back, casting their vast authority and expertise on the side of skepticism.

Besides, there is no such thing as "scientific consensus," there are facts, laws and proven theories human-caused global warming is none of those.

An often-peddled argument is that scientists and advocates have been bought off and take their positions only due to the influence of oil, gas and other energy companies. It's just not true and research into, and critiques of, global warming stand or fall on the merits. The truth of the matter is that truly vast sums of money pour into the climate change advocacy movement from government grants, university funding and environmental deep pockets. That funding is all predicated on continued support for the conventional, alarmist positions. The battle of the budgets would be of no consequence if research, analysis and the scientific method were allowed to stand on their own merits.

Much of the fallacious nature of the agw side stems from the smug acceptance of computer-driven results of analyzing vast amounts of data treated and massaged by algorithms (no pun intended) and formulas into supposedly irrefutable conclusions. The subject is, we are told, so monumentally, so earth shakingly critical for (according to the most alarmed of the alarmists) the survival of humanity. There is no room for doubt because the threat is so severe that to slow down and question (i.e. corroborate and ascertain) the scientific theory is to condemn untold masses to destruction. What utter nonsense! There is virtually nothing of the agw beliefs that has come to pass; very little of what they say has happened throughout geological history actually occurred and what happened doesn't support their current alarmist theories.

There has been no net global warming for 12 to 15 years. So what, some might say. Well, if all of the most powerful and conclusive computer modeling, based on the most sophisticated theories and programming, told the world in the 1990s that something would happen by 2012, namely consistent warming, it better happen.

Or accept the inevitable diminishment of the whole agw theory. This reality has been accepted by none other than the father of global warming, environmentalist and scientist James Lovelock, (Toronto Sun, June), who "acknowledged that he had been unduly 'alarmist' about climate change" with "extraordinary" implications. If the "father of Gaia" acknowledges the reality that the best and brightest calculations have failed to accurately predict temperatures over a significant time period, it "lowers the boom on climate change hysteria."

We are regularly harangued with dire observations and predictions of the decline of the Arctic ice and the poor polar bears.

Reality is that the last ten years of recorded ice coverage is but a millisecond of millennial time; satellites have only given us data for a few decades; the ice coverage has shrunk, and now expands, proving . Nothing.

Again, go to "wattsupwiththat.com" and "donpolson.blogspot.com" (scroll down to the "global warming" label) for deeply informative articles.

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Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988, is a past president of the Tehama County Association of Realtors, licensed from 1994-2010. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com