A debate over warming

If you’re anything like me, you’ve withheld final judgment on the ur- gency of the global warming “crisis,” especially when the Earth has a long history of climate change and we’ve just experienced a record cold January.

It’s also always been somewhat troublesome to me that the costly brouhaha over the cause behind this purported crisis initially was popularized in the early part of this century by the Al Gore documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Remember the questions raised around that?

The contention that climate crisis is caused by excessive greenhouse gases and humanity’s role remains the political centerpiece now backed by the vast majority of scientists and many politicians. Those include President Joe Biden, who calls it the greatest threat to the planet on which we must hurriedly spend trillions of tax dollars to somehow overcome.

As we’ve also seen in recent years, star-struck scientists and ambitious politicians and their parties are sadly prone to be much less than honest with the American people when it comes to pushing Machiavellian agendas. That leave us naturally suspicious of most they claim to be true.

After all, you only have to be caught lying to trusting people once to cast one’s entire credibility into question. And we are miles past once.

Many scientists and many politicians steadfastly fault increasing greenhouse gases for our weather changes, hence the supposed need for expensive and impractical electric vehicles.

Yet this fall another team of scientists offered a different scenario which cited the sun’s irradiance as a culprit, reports the Epoch Times newspaper. Nearly two dozen international scientists are saying the changes in climate appear to be caused to a significant degree by the irradiance levels of our sun, rather than only carbon dioxide emissions, although some combination of each likely plays a role.

The September 2023 study’s findings, published in IOPScience’s Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, sharply contradict conclusions of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), according to the story.

The 20 scientists contend previous studies failed to adequately consider the role of solar energy in explaining increased temperatures, rather placing the fault solely with greenhouse gases. In short, the IPCC report underestimated the role the sun’s rays play in the warming process.

This wasn’t altogether a new development. The Times reported that in 2021, Ronan Connolly, a scientist at the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Science (CERES), and his colleagues published a review raising concerns about multiple climate change reports issued by the UN panel. Those reports concluded global warming since the mid-20th century was essentially human-driven while largely dismissing natural causes behind the process.

“The 2021 review was disputed in a 2022 article by two climate researchers who claimed it was ‘flawed,’ that it ‘should not be treated as credible,’ and that the IPCC’s decision to rule out solar activity as a major driver behind climate change ‘remains intact.’” the Times reported.

The majority of scientists do continue to maintain they are correct in faulting greenhouse emissions and humans. So the confusing and lingering disputes continue.

Meanwhile, the latest CERES study found, depending on the solar activity and temperature records used in the analysis, warming can be blamed on the sun’s rays, human activity or both.

Here is where things require a bit of concentration for we non-scientists.

The 2021 review, according to the Times, noted the IPCC findings contained two major flaws: “For their analysis, the IPCC reports used global surface temperature data that was ‘contaminated by urban warming biases,’ meaning that only temperature records from urban regions were considered. Urban areas tend to be warmer than the countryside due to human activity and various structures. Though urban areas only represent a small percentage of land, these places make up the majority of thermometer records used in estimating global temperatures.”

Additionally, “The IPCC reports used only a small data set from a large pool of data related to Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), which measures the radiant energy emitted by the sun falling on Earth’s atmosphere. And this small data set used by IPCC mostly came to two conclusions—there have been very few TSI changes over the past centuries or that TSI has slightly decreased since the 1950s. By analyzing data showing a rise in temperatures in urban regions and little to no change in Total Solar Irradiance, the IPCC reports blamed human activity for global warming, dismissing the sun’s role in the process.”

The two climate researchers criticizing the 2021 review in the 2022 article noted, according to the Times: “The mathematical techniques used in the review were inappropriate, and a different set of techniques should have been used,” and “the TSI records considered in the review were not up-to-date.”

The Times reports that in their new study, “Mr. Connolly and his team addressed these issues, finding ‘even more compelling evidence that the IPCC’s statements on the causes of global warming since 1850 are scientifically premature and may need to be revisited.’”

So, valued readers, there you have some recently reported statistics to digest based on solar activity and temperature records to add to the confusing and politicized world of global warming/climate change.

Wish I could tell you which version is most accurate. But I’m probably a lot like you: Listening to the debate out here in the cold and dark. Besides, what’s an Ozarks boy from Harrison supposed to know about such matters except what he reads?

TRAINING KILLERS

Did you hear that the Star City man, who posted YouTube videos explaining how to train dogs to attack, was arrested after a pack of dogs mauled his cousin to death last year?

How encouraging to see the justice system involved.

Scott McCool was booked into the Lincoln County Detention Center this month on a manslaughter charge in connection with the October death of James McCool. The 48-year-old suspect was being held on a $25,000 bond.

This is exactly what’s needed whenever someone fails to restrain his or her potentially deadly dog and, as a result, the animal mauls or kills a person and/or their innocent pet.

Actually training dogs, outside of law enforcement and military, to attack and kill people is a whole different charge.

I believe if convicted, there should be a hefty civil fine on top of any jail time he may receive. If not, then I assume he’ll feel free to continue training dogs to attack.

Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you. By the way, always carry adequate self-protection while walking your pet dog.