Global Warming “Deniers”

Since the early 20th century the average temperature on Earth has been rising. This trend, phenomenon, situation, is called Global Warming. Is it real? That depends on who you ask. If you ask one of the 1,372 top climate researchers, you have about a 97% to 98% chance of hearing ‘yes’. So who make up this other 2-3%? I have broken them down to a few categories. The first are those who disagree with the IPCC findings. Then there are those who disagree with the causes. There are those who disagree about the effects of Global Warming. And, of course, there are the outright deniers. This last group often gets the most media attention, so they are probably a great place to start.

The outright deniers include several ‘prominent’ American politicians and public figures. Michelle Bachmann, a Congresswoman from Minnesota and former presidential candidate, described Global Warming as “Voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax.” That is some intense rhetoric from the Congresswoman. Not only is Global Warming a hoax, but hokum, the sub-genre of early  American blues music featuring racial and sexual innuendos. Compelling stuff. This group makes up both the super-minority as well as the super-irrelevant since virtually no members of it are actual scientists. Unfortunately, this group also receives an disproportionate amount of media attention for their antics.
Moving back to the more legitimate skeptics… We’ll call the first group the IPCC skeptics. This group, which accounts for most of that 2-3%, is made up of scientists who disagree specifically with the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC published a report, the 3rd Assessment Report, in 2001. The report claims that the Earth’s temperature is rising, that humans are the main cause of the rise, and what the effects will be up to the year 2100. For the most part, the IPCC skeptics have issues with this last part of the report- the future temperature projections. Some scientists consider the projections too low, some too high, but most disagree with the idea of trying to predict temperatures in the first place because. These are not scientists who deny Global Warming at all. They are just skeptical about the process used to reach these conclusions in the IPCC report.

The next group of ‘Deniers’ are those who disagree with the causes of Global Warming. The IPCC report, which is considered mainstream, puts most of the blame on humans. Many of these scientists feel that the warming has natural causes. One of these causes may be increased heat from the sun. Some evidence to support this is the rising ocean temperatures, at the surface and at deep levels. This type of warming is perhaps more realistically caused by the sun than by CO2 emissions. Another piece of evidence is that other planets may also have rising temperatures. It would therefore make sense that the sun would be affecting them in the same way. Again, these are not scientists who deny that Global Warming is occurring.
Another group of scientists argue that while some warming may be occurring, its effects are harmless. One of their arguments is that increased CO2 will actually benefit food production and quality on Earth. None of these three groups of ‘Deniers’ actually believe that GLobal Warming is not occurring. They disagree with the IPCC, and with one another about the causes and effects of Global Warming. The only absolute deniers are extreme radicals like the Congresswoman. They seem to ignore the scientific evidence while offering absolutely no counter evidence or explanation.