Kowabunga

There is a lot being written on the 'Net in response to Al Gore's recent testimony (which was not under oath) in D.C. this week, including a piece by Steven Milloy for FoxNews. Milloy covered the testimony quite well, hitting on some very important highlights, and exposing the Goracle (Boracle?) as a "do as I say, not as I do" alarmist. From the tale of the little girl who has two winter coats, which sounds pretty good until it is revealed that one is for wearing indoors as her family cannot afford to properly heat her home, to debunking the Boracle's claim of using "green power" on more than one front - for instance, only in the last couple of month's has the Gore plantation been running on "green power", and part of that "green" power is from a methane/coal burn that produces carbon dioxide.

What is really interesting is this part:

If temperature increases come before carbon dioxide increases, the notion that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are changing global temperatures would have the cause-and-effect relationship exactly backward.

Gore responded by describing how, depending on the Earth's tilt and wobble as it revolves around the sun, sometimes carbon dioxide increases precede temperature increases and other times temperature increases precede carbon dioxide increases.

That led attentive listeners to wonder, well, why worry about manmade global warming if it's the Earth's tilt and wobble that define the carbon dioxide-temperature relationship?

Apparently realizing his self-defeating statement, Gore then tried to backtrack by saying that currently, carbon dioxide increases are preceding temperature increases. It was a desperate and revealing effort to get back on message.

One problem with Gore's assertion that CO2 is currently leading temperature increases: it isn't!

I pulled this chart from the Friends of Science website.

As you can see, with the exception of a few years centering ‘70s, CO2 concentrations have been a lagging indicator in regards to global warming. Avery and singer make the same assertions in their book Unstoppable Global Warming, and their assertions were based on volumes of scientific data. Great book, by the way.

The other interesting point is Gore's referencing the Earth's tilt and wobble as having an impact on CO2 levels. It is more accurate to say that these factors, as well as variances in the Earth's orbit, play a role in climate change in regards to the cooling and warming cycles. Again, a lot has been written about how these cycles impact the Earth's climate.

With the Boracle's appearance in Washington, and his frothing at the mouth rhetoric about "impending doom and gloom" and that it is all man's (America's?) fault, it is very clear that global warming will be a highly polarizing issue in the 2008 campaign. Let's all hope that the real science shines through the carbon-dioxide smoke-screen being spewed by the party of totalitarianism. Otherwise, be prepared to wear winter coats in your home in 2009. And watch your wallet.

Tags:

Al Gore Goracle Boracle