They disagree with each other, and with climate change

Mar 9, 2009 10:11 GMT  ·  By
Some global warming critics wrongfully contend that man-induced pollution is not responsible for global warming
   Some global warming critics wrongfully contend that man-induced pollution is not responsible for global warming

This week, more than 600 so-called climate skeptics are meeting at a hotel in Times Square, New York, to bring forth arguments against what they term as being false notions of global warming and climate change. More accurately, they are trying to draw attention to the fact that they believe these two phenomena to be unrelated to human activity. The Head of the United Nations office managing international treaty talks on climate change, Yvo de Boer, warns that these discussions are only meant to distract people from the real issues and offer oil companies more time to pollute.

Among the attendants to the conference there will also be scientists who refute global warming, politicians, conservative groups and other individuals who believe that climate change is either something that occurs naturally, or that we, as a race, do not have the ability to influence the planet to such an extent that it starts warming. But because the opponents to these phenomena list so many other things as possible causes for global warming, they often also fight amongst themselves.

Stanford University climatologist Stephen H. Schneider, who has authored a large number of studies on the issue for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), says that this conference is without serious scientific background, and that this is just a last attempt of a “shrinking community” to hinder finding a solution to a global problem. Schneider, one of the leading experts in his field, considers that the New York conference is just meant to “bamboozle the innocent.”

“I don’t believe that what the skeptics say should provide any excuse to delay [action against climate change any further. Skeptics are good. It’s important to give people the confidence that the issue is being called into question,” de Boer states. Also, another point of the conference, as declared by its organizers, is to stop Obama and the Democrats from passing regulations of carbon-emitting industries through the legislative forums, advocating that such measures are uncalled for.

“As a physicist, I am concerned that some skeptics (a very few) are ignoring the physical basis. There is one who denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which goes against actual data.” Others argue that “humans are not responsible for the measured increase in atmospheric CO2,” which is also false, physicist S. Fred Singer, the un-official “leader” of those opposing global warming, shares in an e-mail for The New York Times. Unfortunately, there still are individuals who, armed with little knowledge, continue to spread misinformation on various websites and in the media as to the true causes of global warming.