"Global Warming" is a hoax

While John Coleman is entitled to his opinion, he's not an expert in climate science. He's a television performer and an entrepreneur, not a researcher or a scientist (does he even have a Master's degree, let alone a doctorate?). He has only the veneer of credibility on this issue. I notice it's not mentioned that he only was with the Weather Channel for one year and left in 1983 (which is ancient history in terms of global warming science). This conclusion he's reached not on research he's done himself. Since you've gone on auto-pilot, letting the writings of others speak for you – I hope you won't mind when I do the same for a while. Here are excerpts from a solid rebuttal of the John Coleman rant you posted. In it he points out that Coleman is writing for ICECAP, which is an anti-Global Warming organization with shadowy funding sources. He also notes that both the Weather Channel and the American Meteorological Society contradict Coleman: No Need For Climate Change Conspiracy Theories Andrew Freedman | November 11, 2007 | CapitolWeather.com … Coleman's piece is notable because it lays bare the predicament of the climate change contrarianism movement 2.0. Whereas the first generation of climate change contrarians during the 1980s and much of the 90s wielded enormous political influence when the science was more uncertain, contrarians today have been largely relegated to boisterous backbenchers who air their views in online forums. Their marginalization to the fringe of the debate is what drives people like Coleman stark raving mad. Yet Coleman's piece actually helps the arguments of those who are seeking action on global warming by making those on his side look desperate and foolish. For example, rather than citing peer reviewed scientific research to back up his claims, Coleman instead provides no evidence at all to back up his viewpoint. None. Zip, zero, zilch. … In claiming to understand climate change, Coleman blatantly ignores the differences between meteorology (and TV meteorology at that) and the numerous climate science disciplines, which encompass multiple complex fields from atmospheric physics to oceanography. Considerably more complex than Mr. Coleman is used to in his current position as a TV weather forecaster in sunny San Diego. … Coleman's rhetoric contrasts sharply with that of former American Meteorological Society President (AMS) and D.C. television weather forecasting institution Bob Ryan, who along with NBC Telemundo Miami meteorologist John Toohey-Morales wrote a recent guest editorial in the Bulletin of the AMS. According to them, the public is looking to television weathercasters to provide them with information and guidance on climate change rather than personal views. "When we stray from objectivity in communicating the latest scientific findings, we do the public a disservice," they wrote. Coleman's piece is an example of precisely the kind of communication that Ryan and Toohey-Morales single out as particularly troubling. "Alarmingly, many weathercasters and certified broadcast meteorologists dismiss, in most cases without any solid scientific arguments, the conclusions of the National Research Council (NRC), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and other peer-reviewed research," Ryan and Toohey-Morales wrote. … The Weather Channel issued a statement in response to Coleman's blog post that reiterated the network's stance on global warming, which holds that there is "strong evidence that the majority of the warming over the past century is a result of human activities. This is also the conclusion drawn, nearly unanimously, by climate scientists. Any meaningful debate on the topic amongst climate experts is over." With respect to CO2 output and climate change – there is indeed a well-documented impact, which I can cite a variety of sources for if you like. What is subject to debate is WHERE and HOW CO2 impacts climate, and in what proportion to all of the myriad other factors that impact climate. This argument you're raising about the period between the 40s and the 70s is likely another one lifted from Crichton's poorly-researched book "State of Fear." It, too, is incorrect and is easily refuted. In the first place (as I already noted) CO2 is only one of the many factors contributing to Global Climate Change. Second, the data that claims the Earth warmed during that period is based ONLY on data from the Northern Hemisphere. It's perfectly possible for the overall temperature of the Earth to be rising even if it's declining in certain areas (another great illustration of this fact was the Antarctic data you referenced; PARTS of Antarctica are cooling – but on the whole the continent is warming, and alarmingly-so in those areas). Third, as I previously noted, "forcings" (through things like land use changes – a great many of which happened during the period you cite as the US became much more environmentally / ecologically conscious, solar radiation, sulphate and nitrate aerosols, and volcanic activity) can temporarily override the effects of CO2 production. As for your claim about the National Academy of Sciences, you again could not be more wrong. The NAS has concluded that human activity does contribute to global warming AND that the phenomena is responsible for the negative environmental consequences we're experiencing now (droughts, fiercer storms, etc.). The only thing that the NAS has said that resembles what you're presenting is that some of the conclusions drawn from proxy sources are fuzzier, and that we need to do a lot more research. This is from the NAS' book "Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions": "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century. Secondary effects are suggested by computer model simulations and basic physical reasoning. These include increases in rainfall rates and increased susceptibility of semi-arid regions to drought. The impacts of these changes will be critically dependent on the magnitude of the warming and the rate with which it occurs." Not only that – but they echo the same things I've been saying about the period of slight cooling from 1940-1970 elsewhere in the book when they talk about the effects of industrialization on climate: "The Northern Hemisphere as a whole experienced a slight cooling from 1946–75, and the cooling during that period was quite marked over the eastern United States. The cause of this hiatus in the warming is still under debate. The hiatus is evident in averages over both Northern and Southern Hemispheres, but it is more pronounced in the Northern Hemisphere. One possible cause of this feature is the buildup of sulfate aerosols due to the widespread burning of high sulfur coal during the middle of the century, followed by a decline indicated by surface sulfate deposition measurements." To your final point, melting ice caps (and glaciers) is no less fiction than regions of the world drying out. It's not "someone in the media" making arguments that the ice caps are melting; it's the scientists literally watching thousands of miles of ice shelves dropping into the water and melting. Search any news search engine and you'll find thousands of reports, photos and videos from scientists attesting to the serious decline in ice masses on the earth. I can link to reams of satellite photos illustrating the dramatic decline of glaciers, ice shelves, and polar ice packs.