No Al Gore, I Won't Stop Being Productive

Melting icecaps, dying polar bears, floods of biblical proportion, the end of civilization-we seem to hear about these things on a daily basis. The media tells us that scientists inexplicably claim carbon dioxide (CO²) as the culprit for earth's rising temperatures. Combine this with Al Gore's award-winning film documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which coincides with these claims, and you end up with our current political climate on this issue: through the use of everyday conveniences such as cars, microwaves, automobiles, etcetera, we destroy the hope of a recognizable future one carbon emission at a time. Suddenly, we stubbornly stand as the evil bringing about the end of the world and must now go on a diet to cut back on our "carbs". But does this claim hold up to scrutiny under a critical, unbiased eye? Unfortunately, it does not. After logical analysis of the main articles of evidence, CO² shows itself innocent of the dastardly charge of severely warming up our globe.

We'll first start by clearing up (or cleaning up) a common myth-CO² is not a pollutant. In An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore claims that we are polluting the atmosphere, and this pollution heats up the earth. He then goes on to say that CO² is the gas responsible for the dirty deed; thus CO² must be a pollutant according to Al Gore. This is simply not true. CO² is naturally produced by all living things, and the basic requirements for all life on earth rest on it. To call CO² a pollutant reasons as a gross misstatement of its vital role in our earth. I believe recognizing this fact is very important to examining the charges against CO² without bias. If one believes CO² is just a dirty pollutant then they might retain a tendency to easily sway in the direction of vilifying the gas and siding with claims that support this idea. But with this out of the way, we can start exploring the evidence.

Let us begin by examining the comparison between worldwide hydrocarbon use and the temperature of the arctic air for the past century or so. The displayed graph is from the researchers at Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. As you can conclude from a quick glance at the graph, between the years of approximately 1940 and 1970 world hydrocarbon use climbed exponentially, yet arctic temperatures dropped consistently. If carbon directly causes increases in earth's temperature, then how can we reconcile this belief with the above data? The scientific method says we should look for another source. This source, as the graph clearly denotes, can very possibly be the sun, but establishing that information lies beyond the scope of this article. For now, let's focus on the evidence for the verdict with which An Inconvenient Truth provides us.

Despite the above graph and its obvious implications, many people still refer to An Inconvenient Truth for defending their stance on convicting carbon as the global warming agent. In Gore's film he shows a graph depicting world temperatures layered respectively on top of world carbon levels for six-hundred and fifty thousand years past. The graph displays temperature and carbon levels rising and falling in sync with each other. The viewer is then led to believe that the rise in carbon causes the rise in temperature; Al Gore himself states "The relationship is actually very complicated, but there is one relationship that is far more powerful than all the others, and it is this: when there is more carbon-dioxide the temperature gets warmer". This is a simple case of correlation equals causation; or when two measurable effects are related one is assumed to act as the cause for the other. Upon closer examination, though, one finds that the rise in carbon comes between two-hundred and eight-hundred years after the rise in temperature. Al Gore neglected to point out this information. With this in mind, carbon cannot logically stand as the culprit for the temperature increases. If anything, one can only assume that the rises in temperature cause the rises in carbon since the rises in temperature come before the increased carbon levels. In fact, this is exactly the case. It is quite well known among oceanographers that the ocean is the world's largest producer of carbon; much more than dying vegetation, animals, volcanic activity, and even mankind combined. But without going into details of the exact process, the professionals at NASA say that cold ocean temperatures favor taking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while warm temperatures favor the ocean surface release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This concept very simply explains why for the past 650,000 years when the earth's temperature rose, the oceans would heat up and CO² levels rose hundreds of years later as an ocean takes much longer to heat up than air. Once again, the data does not support the idea that CO² heats up the earth.

Even beyond this the doubts still remain-what about CO² being the most important greenhouse gas? CO² is a greenhouse gas, but nowhere close to the most significant of them. According to the professionals at the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, water vapor is about one-hundred times more abundant in the atmosphere, and it holds fast as the most significant of greenhouse gasses.

After the calculation of all this information, many people still make an appeal to authority. They claim that a consensus exists among scientists about the issue so we should just take their word for it. The Oregon Institute of Science and medicine currently has approximately 31,000 signers of their Global Warming Petition Project, which claims "there are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape". In order to sign the petition signers must hold "a university degree in physical science, either BS, MS, or PhD". How can a consensus exist if 31,000 qualified scientists have stepped up to disagree with the charges against CO²? No such consensus exists, and one should certainly not be thought unintelligent for considering opposing evidence.

Where does this leave us? In Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth the absolute bedrock of his argument lies in the validity of carbon pushing temperatures up for the past 650,000 years, but this assumption clearly misrepresents the data. And with the commonly held belief that a consensus among the scientific community stands firmly, people endure harsh criticism of a religious zeal when they disagree with the "consensus". But the fact remains: CO² stands innocent in the true light of the charges against it.

Okay, so what harm is any of this doing, and what can I do about it anyway? Well, it's clearly become profitable for businesses to preach green. After all, it's empowering to an individual to feel like they're saving the world by changing out their light bulbs. But when congress is planning on taxing all these non-green forms of energy, it makes production of it more expensive. Now, if you've ever ran a small business, or even taken a business course you can easily understand the consequences of this. Let's pretend you make widgets; it costs $1 to make them and you sell them for $1.25. If the cost to make them goes up 10% to $1.10 do you just take the loss and keep selling at $1.25? No, of course not, you have to recoup your costs and charge $1.35. The same is true for energy, and this is why this movement is harmful to the average person. A tax on the most efficient and cheap forms of energy only raises the average Joe's cost of living via their energy bills. So what can you do about it? First, Do not abandon the scientific method and a healthy supply of criticism because of societal pressures to feel guilty for not being green. Then, just go about your lives, change the channel when a company is trying to buy your loyalty with a green message, write your local representative and ask them to reconsider the facts or you'll fire their butt, and tell Al Gore, "No, I will not stop being productive."