Global Warming: So What?

Coastal flooding! Rampant starvation! Rising death tolls! Government cover-ups! End of the world!

This global warming is pretty scary stuff.

Unfortunately, like the emperor's new clothes, there's nothing to it, and the world is being dragged along by peer pressure.

The story we've all been fed in our science classes, in the media and by politicians is that our SUVs and industries are raising the average global temperature with their carbon dioxide emissions. (Ironic, since in the 1970s, it was government that mandated catalytic converters and other devices to change carbon monoxide to the supposedly harmless carbon dioxide.)

The Democrat-led Congress is going full-bore with its global warming "investigation," with its requisite accusations that the Bush administration is somehow suppressing the "truth" that we're all doomed, and it's our own fault.

The only truth being suppressed, however, is that many reputable scientists think global warming is a completely natural process and nothing to be troubled about.

These scientists, who rarely get in the news, point out that planet Earth has always warmed and cooled in cycles and there are a number of natural checks and balances to keep the climate from running out of control.

Even as the Chicken Little crowd clucks about shrinking Arctic ice, studies have found the Antarctic ice pack is growing. Warming of waters around the frozen continent has resulted in increased evaporation, which then falls as snow. The supposed coastal flooding global warming is expected to bring is thus seen as highly doubtful, if not impossible.

First, the Arctic ice pack floats -- it's essentially a giant ice cube. Even if it all melted, the sea level would remain the same as the ice pack's undersea volume disappeared. Second, if all of Greenland's ice melted, one study has estimated it would result in an increase in sea level of 0.13 inches per year; however, the increasing snow pack in Antarctica is estimated to be lowering sea levels by the same amount. Third, any melting glaciers on the continents will mostly be absorbed by inland seas, lakes, natural aquifers and such. Whatever does make it to the ocean is unlikely to cause any significant rise.

The coastal flooding hypothesis seems to be a wash, so to speak.

Then there's the carbon dioxide bogeyman. The theory, based on observations of Venus, is that carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere will create a blanket trapping heat and causing the Earth to eventually boil to death. Reality check: Carbon dioxide weighs much more than oxygen, hydrogen, etc. Anyone who's taken a basic science class should recall that the tendency in mixtures, such as our atmosphere, is for substances to organize themselves by weight, with the heavier on the bottom, unless they are mixed up by some external force. Lighter gases rise. Heavier gases, such as carbon dioxide, tend to hug the ground.

There is no known mechanism that would pump carbon dioxide into the upper atmosphere in enough quantity to create this theorized global "blanket."

There are things that can cause the Earth to warm and cool as part of the natural cycle of life. The sun is the most obvious: It's a swirling ball of nuclear fire that occasionally belches or coughs, causing changes on Earth, but it has yet to burn us to a crisp. Then there is the Earth's core: As stable as the surface may seem, underneath, the planet is a mass of bubbling lava that creates changing magnetic fields and occasionally breaks through in the form of volcanoes, which also affect global temperatures, especially when they are underwater. The planet's rotation, too, is not perfectly stable. The Earth is not exactly round (it's slightly pear shaped), so it wobbles a bit. That, too, can affect the weather.

The only constant about the Earth is that it changes. We know that nature has many ways of re-balancing itself in the face of disruptive effects, and that includes anything we humans could do.

The bottom line is that global warming hysteria is a cynical attempt by people in power to make the mass of society feel guilty about "hurting" the planet, thus putting you in a frame of mind that will make you more likely to calmly accept higher taxes, penalties, restrictions and controls over your life. Many liberals and foreign powers also see this as an opportunity to dismantle or hinder American industry, to punish us for economic success.

There is money to be made from mass panic. Recall Y2K? Global warming is no different -- just another cover for reducing your freedoms. Don't buy into it.