Is man-made climate change just a myth?

So we all think we should recycle, reduce our carbon footprint and tax drivers of Land Rovers until their pips squeak. But, in light of climate change denial, we ask: Is man-made climate change just a myth?

If I had a pound for every time the science world made a mistake, I’d be sitting on a beach in the Algarve really making the most of this global warming with a multipack of sun-block and a white Magnum.
    And let’s face it – some of the mistakes made by scientists have been pretty remarkable haven’t they? Experts said our lovely round earth was flat, they said smoking was good for you and they claimed that white people were more intelligent than black people. And I am supposed to trust them on this one?
    Who says that the idea of Climate Change being man-made isn’t just another scientific blunder?
    You can throw all the statistics and bar-charts in the world at me; the idea that global warming is man-made is a hypothesis endorsed by depressant hippies who will always seek to find faults with humanity. It’s just their way.
    It amazes me that the greenies are so quick to attack mainstream politics and yet they embrace mainstream science without as much as a thought.
Because let’s face it, even if every nation in the world lowered their carbon emissions to their desired target, where are the tree huggers going to meet up for a fight and a sing song? They love the concept of man-made climate change; it gives them a warm feeling inside.
    We’ll all be long dead when our great grandchildren are laughing at our stupidity, sitting on the Costa del Leeds with a glass of Pimm’s and a peeling nose.
    We all love the term ‘experts’ and ‘scientists’ but can someone tell me what that means? Are we really putting all our hopes on groups of academics who are paid to tell their clients what they want to hear?
    Scientists and academics cannot agree amongst themselves about what is happening to our planet. Climate change has more models than London fashion week.
    The leaked East Anglian University emails show that something just isn’t right and it is very possible that scientists are manipulating data to suit their employers.
    How can they expect me to believe that we are responsible for global warming when they are busy arguing amongst themselves over when the polar ice caps will melt?
    I’m siding with scientists such as Dennis Avery and Fred Singer who believe the warming of our planet is part of a 1,500 year cycle. Temperatures change as often as every decade, and ‘experts’ do not really know why. Only last month American researchers published work looking into the effect of water vapour high in the atmosphere on global temperatures. It had more of an impact than they previously thought.
    This demonstrates the continuous studies that are dismissing past observations of our naive experts. Who is to say the notion of man-made climate change won’t be dismissed in 20 years time?
    And what about cows? Their farts are a bigger contributor to climate change than me not recycling my newspaper or having a bottle of water is.
    Why do we feel that we are so important on this planet when we are a tiny factor in a much bigger picture? We would have blamed ourselves for the ice-age if we were knocking about. It is no more than  anthropocentric to believe that we have such power over Mother Nature that we can alter its path. There will always be natural disasters – everyone seems to be so shocked about them nowadays.
    The climate change debate will roll on and on because scientists and the greens love getting together once and a while for a bit of a protest. You won’t pull the wool over my eyes.
    We’ll blow ourselves up before it gets too hot for us to handle; I’m keeping an eye on those Iranians personally.
    Now let’s crack open a beer and enjoy the impending improvement in the weather. Just let Mother Nature play her game.
    God won’t let us destroy our own planet – it took him six whole days to make this baby.

Global warming is NOT a myth. If you believe it is, you also believe that simple physics is incorrect. What is more, you are a grossly negligent, irresponsible and supremely unintelligent human being. Let your education begin.
    First, what the sceptics say. Global warming sceptics have argued that since 1998, the temperature records of the earth have shown no increase. They have also argued that the earth has been warmer in the recent past and that we simply do not have, and have not had the correct apparatus to make reliable judgements on this issue.  There are arguments that global warming is a natural occurrence which is dictated by natural variations in the sun’s magnetic field and solar winds, and lastly, my personal favourite, that CO2 is largely unimportant. Water vapour is the major greenhouse gas, not CO2, and has shown no signs of adversely affecting our climate.
    Ah yes, water vapour. Let’s start with that. Wouldn’t it be lovely to imagine that this friendly little greenhouse gas is innocently accountable for all the panic over global warming? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to believe that 98% of the warming process is due to water vapour and that our contribution to the earth’s temperature in CO2 or methane levels would therefore have little, if any impact on the warming process? Oh and by the by, it doesn’t even matter if water vapour levels are on the rise because it is a simple case of how the water vapour is distributed that affects the warming process. Well as nice as it sounds, it ain’t true. Firstly water vapour only accounts for under half of the total warming process; the rest is CO2 and other greenhouse gases. And since the industrial revolution, mankind has pushed up CO2 emissions by 30%. Simple climatology states that a rise in CO2 leads to a rise in the temperature of the earth, and this temperature increase boosts water vapour levels, which seriously affects the warming process. So unfortunately, physics and history are simply not on your side if you refuse to believe in global warming. And I reckon that’s cause enough for a rethink.
    The problem with sceptics, (and there are many, probably the most interesting being that they all at one point in their life have been or will be committed to a lunatic asylum) is that they pick and choose their facts. For example, 1998 was the hottest year on record, and since then temperatures have never got as hot. But 1998 was a truly phenomenal year, caused by the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years. Therefore taking the subsequent years since the hottest year of the millennium as proof that the earth is cooling is grossly misleading, if not cheating. Had the sceptics picked 1997 or 1999 the results would still have displayed a sharp rise. What is more, climatologists announced in 2009 that the world was entering a new El Niño warm spell. A future episode could be expected to create a spike of equivalent magnitude on top of an even higher baseline, thus shattering the 1998 record. Bob Henson, of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said: “To claim that global temperatures have cooled since 1998 and therefore that man-made climate change isn’t happening is a bit like saying spring has gone away when you have a mild week after a scorching Easter.”
    Unfortunately, other arguments such as global warming being explained merely as the climate responding to variations in solar activities or attempts to claim that we have not had the appropriate apparatus to measure climate change simply don’t wash. There has been no positive incline in any solar index since 1960, so the sun’s activity cannot bear any responsibility for climate change. And although historical data may not be as complete as the sceptics want it to be, it has been collected since the late eighteenth century and is therefore complete enough to be able to draw strong conclusions.
    Global warming is happening. It’s easy to deny it because we love our polluting cars and hate having to sort our plastics from our papers, and because the view from our windows does not exactly represent a scene from The Day After Tomorrow. And maybe I’m just being cynical but I reckon deep down the prospect of the UK with a Mediterranean climate is secretly appealing, (despite it being at the expense of more flooding in Bangladesh and worsening droughts in Africa.) Whatever the reason for denying climate change (conspiracy to get us to pay higher taxes, anyone?), isn’t it time to put the debate aside and reverse climate change, just in case it turns out that the sceptics got it wrong? Surely what’s at stake is too valuable to risk not doing anything, and in reality, doing something isn’t really that hard.

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