Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
every storm on climate change when there has been so little warming so far and when storm trends are so
unremarkable. Remember, climate is always volatile, climate is always dangerous.
Or take the issue of sea levels, which we hear are rapidly rising. Al Gore's movie
An Inconvenient
Truth
terrified many with claims of likely twenty-foot rises in sea levels.
27
Given the temperature trends,
however, we wouldn't expect warming to have a dramatic effect on sea levels. And, in fact, it hasn't.
Figure 4.5 shows sea level trends from locations throughout the world. Note how smooth the trends
are—and also notice how several of them are downward. This points to a truth about sea level and climate.
It is affected by many factors, often factors that are much more important than any change in the global
climate system.
But what about all those extreme scenarios of future sea level rise? They are not based on real trends or
proven science; they are based on climate-prediction models that can't predict climate. And anyone who
tries to equate science and speculation is being unethical. Which is, unfortunately, rampant.
CLIMATE DISHONESTY: EQUATING THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT WITH
CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE
The entire modern enterprise of catastrophic climate change predictions, the enterprise that threatens our
energy supply, is based on equating a
demonstrated scientific truth,
the greenhouse effect, with extremely
speculative projections made by invalidated models.
Figure 4.5: What Sea Level Rise Actually Looks Like
