Basis of Climate Change Legislation

The hubbub on climate change is based on an 881-page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). This report is entitled, "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis". It has multiple authors, all of whom apparently work for the IPPC. It is in this report that the inventions of "greenhouse gases" and "radiative forcing" have been presented.

As one reads this report, a bias is apparent. The bias is twofold. That man is responsible for significant aspects of global warming, and that significant climate change can be controlled by man.

I have said previously that if one can't say in four or five pages what one means, then he doesn't have anything to say. I will relent a bit on this. It depends on the subject. Four or five pages would apply to a philosophical or political point. A scientific paper, with the requirement of supporting data, might take 10 or 12 pages. A legislative bill might even go as high as 20 pages. However anything, except a fictional work or historical account, which involves 800 to 1000 pages probably has intention to hide something or confuse an issue, since no one is expected to read that much.

Returning to "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis", Chapter 7.7 covers Rapid Changes in the Climate System. The last paragraph is on page 456 and says, "Comprehensive climate models in conjunction with sustained observational systems, both in situ and remote, are the only tool to decide whether the evolving climate system is approaching such thresholds. Our knowledge about the processes, and feedback mechanisms determining them, must be significantly improved in order to extract early signs of such changes from model simulations and observations". Another way of saying this is that they have used model simulations and observations, which were at that time unreliable, to relate any climate changes to human involvement. That was eight years ago, but I've seen no improved simulations or other observations, which would change that picture.

The bottom line is that we have an 881-page report, which admits its promotion is primarily speculation, and on which Congress is now planning to base its legislation. Seems rather silly!