Trevor Thomas on Global Warming.

From Global Cooling to Global Warming

“There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production… The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it… (scientists) are almost unanimous in the view that the (weather) trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century…The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to be cooling down.”

That’s right folks, you read it right, they said we were “cooling down.” The above quotes are from the April 28, 1975 issue of Newsweek magazine. Notice what Time magazine had to say on the same subject in 1974:

“When meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. (Climatologists) are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age… Telltale signs are everywhere from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest… Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.”

So, in about 30 years we’ve gone from the threat of having icebergs in our back yard to the threat of having said icebergs all melt, and each of us wishing we had traded our SUVs in for a lifetime supply of fluorescent light bulbs.

Al Gore wants to sell us “carbon offsets”; Heidi Cullen of The Weather Channel wants the American Meteorological Society (AMS) to take away its certification of broadcast meteorologists who don’t tow the “man made” global warming line; and our own Joan King wants us to practice more birth control so we don’t expand our population “past the carrying capacity of the earth.”

The one reasonably certain fact that I have gathered in this debate is that the earth is a bit warmer than it was a decade or two ago. Beyond that there is so much hype, hysteria, and misinformation that one could find himselfs worrying that those beloved polar bears in the coca cola commercials might need to be replaced by more warm-weather loving animals, like say armadillos.

Take heart friends; there are plenty of scientists who have serious doubts about man-made global warming. James Spann, who has been in operational meteorology since 1978, recently wrote an Op-Ed piece responding to Ms. Cullen. He notes that, “For many, global warming is a big cash grab. Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up…Even the lady at ‘The Weather Channel’ probably gets paid good money for a prime time show on climate change.”

Timothy Ball, the first Canadian to hold a Ph.D. in Climatology and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, says, “Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification.”

Alabama State Climatologist John Christy has “found almost no sign of global warming in the satellite data,” and adds that, “one finds it difficult to conclude the (sic) climate change is occurring in the US and that it is exceedingly difficult to conclude that part of that change might have been caused by human factors.”

Dr. William Gray, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, is another man-made global warming skeptic. According to the L.A. Times, Dr. Gray “pioneered the concept of ‘seasonal’ hurricane forecasting — predicting months in advance the severity of the coming hurricane season. Gray’s prognostications, issued since 1983, are used by insurance companies to calculate premiums.” He has also served as a weather forecaster for the U.S Air Force. In a recent Denver Post article he stated that, “They've been brainwashing us for 20 years. Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was.”

I believe in the biblical principle of stewardship. We should all remember that, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Ps. 24:1). We are merely managers of His property. However, in our stewardship we must focus on the Creator and not the created.

I’m afraid that many caught up in the global warming hoopla have become foolish in the manner described by the Apostle Paul in Romans and, “Exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.”