AUSTIN – A new paper released today by the Texas Public Policy Foundation debunks former Vice President Al Gore’s claim (which he will repeat during his Austin appearance tonight) that “the [global warming] debate is over.”
“Human activities are not influencing the global climate in a perceptible way,” said Dr. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and a distinguished research professor at George Mason University. “Climate will continue to change, as it always has in the past, warming and cooling on different time scales and for different reasons, regardless of human action.”
The paper, “Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural?” was based on a recent speech by Dr. Singer at Hillsdale College in Michigan. The paper also includes two sidebar articles – one on renewable energy and conservation, the other on claims that the global warming debate is settled – by Drew Thornley, a policy analyst in the Foundation’s Center for Economic Freedom.
Singer countered claims that human activity is causing the earth’s climate to change by noting that “the geological record shows a persistent 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling extending back at least one million years.”
He challenged the notion that a “scientific consensus” was sufficient to establish that humans were the culprits for global warming. “Science proceeds by the scientific method and draws conclusions based on evidence, not on a show of hands,” he noted.
In the paper, Singer also explained why “greenhouse effect” computer models did not work, how the sun is the most important factor determining the earth’s climate, how humans may benefit from a warmer planet, and how humans could suffer from current policy proposals to offset the alleged human role in global warming.
“Because of the mistaken idea that governments can and must do something about climate,” Singer wrote, “pressures are building that have the potential of distorting energy policies in a way that will severely damage national economies, decrease standards of living, and increase poverty.”
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin, Texas. The paper, “Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural?” is available on the Foundation’s website, http://www.TexasPolicy.com/.
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