The Denier

So here I am wondering how I got tagged with the sobriquet of “denier”. Here are things I am sure of.

1. Global Warming is real.
2. Humans have impacted climate, particularly by gaseous pollutants. Methane will have an impact on climate, CFC’s really do chew up the ozone layer. SO2 has cooled the world.
3. The “greenhouse effect” or the increase in atmospheric temperature due to absorption of electromagnetic radiation, is real.
4. CO2 is the second largest contributor to the greenhouse effect.
5. It doesn’t matter a whit whether water has a much larger impact than CO2.
6. It doesn’t matter a whit whether the sun’s energy fluctuates.
7. I agree with at least 90% of the IPCC assessment reports.

Here are things that may be true, but I haven’t seen definitive proofs.

1. Global Warming will cause catastrophic events.
2. Recent temperature trends (in the last 500 years) are increasing beyond ‘normal’.
3. Global warming is accelerating.

Here are things that are just as likely as the stuff above.

1. Global Warming will reduce the number of catastrophic events..
2. Recent temperature trends (in the last 500 years) are ‘normal’.
3. Global warming has stopped and we are now cooling.

Here are things I’m skeptical about.

1. We know or can estimate a “global average” . . . anything, but most importantly, temperature.
2. CO2 is not yet saturated in the atmosphere. This is a well known thing in other fields that examine radiant heat transfer in the atmosphere, yet for some reason, climate is different.
3. Trees make good thermometers. A temperature reading by any other name would still be . . . a comparison of a physical property to the current ‘temperature’. Such properties being: relative thermal expansion of metals, thermal expansion of mercury, change in electrical resistance versus heat, tree growth over a season, etc. The first three are state properties. The fourth is not. Should we change our view of them to “hide the decline”?
4. The environmental movement is ethical. I have good friends who are environmentalists, including my wife. A further explanation is an entire essay onto itself. Suffice it to say, money corrupts and there is a lot of green in green.

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