Bald Assertion Reported as Scientific Finding

At first it was called human-induced fossil-fuel burning CO2 produced "global warming." Al Gore got a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar. Draconian laws to limit industry and fossil fuel usage as well as a punitive tax on the raising of cattle began to become the forced policy directives of many countries. [Update: Since this article was posted, we have learned that some in the U.S. government are trying to do the same thing!]

But then the facts began to fall apart. Glaciers began to grow faster in one year than anyone thought possible. The world began to cool or at least hold steady both in global averages and also to the personal experience of millions of people in different areas. But CO2 emissions still saw an increase. Surely CO2 was not causing the global cooling! Then the Goddard Institute of Space Studies left in its climate models bogus data from Siberia (summer numbers transmuted to fall figures) that vastly increased the purported global temperature averages. Anyone with common sense could tell you that Siberia would be much hotter in the summer than in October. And over the year the phrase changed from "global warming" to human-induced "climate change."

But even that turn-of-phrase could not help the defense of climate-alarmists' perspective. Not only the present, but also historical evidence began to mount that pre-industrial age temperature -- the era before any fossil fuel industry -- had fluctuated significantly from temperatures as warm or warmer than the 1990's, to very cold "little ice age" type climates. And so how could it be cause by human-induced fossil fuel emissions? Evidence of a balmy Greenland around 1000 A.D. suddenly gave a concrete reason for the Vikings' choice of name. No matter; advocates are so sure it must be human-induced. There is an often unspoken (and also unshakeable) belief that our great civilizations have always overused resources and raped environments -- not merely on a local level but on a global scale.

And so now we begin to observe in the media the push to produce evidence that historical climate fluctuations were also human-induced. Witness the Discovery article "Falls of Empires Hastened Little Ice Age." People who see the title of the article without reading closely will be bolstered in their beliefs about global warming. At the very least Discover News should have put the word "claimed" in there because the article is merely assertion occasioned by the weakest situation of a possible correlation.

But note the end of the article: "Nevle and Bird admit that volcanic activity and a decrease in the sun's intensity probably both played roles in triggering the Little Ice Age. Still, Bird said, human activity was undeniably important."

"Human activity was undeniable important." Bird's statement is simply bald assertion with no evidence. Indeed in the same breathe he is forced to admit that volcanic activity and solar cycles probably played roles. These two natural causes have proven causal connections to climate change. But to claim that empires falling must have caused an increase in the rain forest and that must have been so huge that global temperatures fell ignores perhaps hundreds of confounding variables. Could it be that falling temperatures actually influenced the failing of empires? Perhaps the anarchy that result meant more forest fires? Do we really know whether there was a net increase in rainforest coverage? What of the evidence that many rain-forest civilizations did not depend on clear-cutting but rather used forest management strategies? [see 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles C. Mann.] Could whatever increase in rain forest in one area have been offset by the destruction of trees in another area of the world? The list of other explanations and variables could go on.

These authors pretend objective science when they -- as if with religious fervor -- actually merely assert something founded on nothing but assertion and a few vague possible correlations. Speculation is not science and should not be reported as such. When policies are made on the basis of speculative pronouncement, governments could unjustly destroy people's ways of life, take away their freedom, and cause economic depression.

With regard to The Little Ice Age, there is already evidence for a pattern of cooling caused by natural forces: Along with the bubonic plague mentioned in the article, instead of a reduction in population which somehow caused cooling, the evidence for one major outbreak in the 6th Century is that a major volcanic eruption in 535 A.D. then led to a climate change that then led to movement in wild rodent host populations that led to cross species infection that ultimately led to the human associated rodents carrying plague across the trade routes. For more information, see: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization Indeed the decline of the Teotihuacan Mayan civilation correlates to the same time.

So you have strong evidence that in the 6th Century global cooling (or climate change) induced plague in Asia and Europe as well as major droughts and collapse of civilizations in Central America was very probably caused by non-human volcanic activity of an enormous eruption from a region in Indonesia.

Then despite this evidence in the 6th century that should at least have some weight in understanding the 16th century, the writers brazenly assert that somehow in the situation in the 1500's had to be caused by the reduction of human activity instead of natural non-human causes.

-- Joel Linton
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Links --
Catalogue of things for which some prominent media have blamed global warming

Thoughts by John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel

Manhattan Declaration of the International Climate Science Coalition