Mark Twain once said, “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” How true this statement is with regards to the looming global-warming scare, whereupon scaremongers, luddites and environmental commandos all find a common ax to grind. Even the United Nations is in on the con, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) making predictions of “a global warming of between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees C (2.5 — 10.4 F) as soon as 2100 — the fastest rate of change since the end of the last ice age.”

There’s only one problem with this story: It’s completely false.

Start with the climate change model — according to the original IPCC model, an average global temperature increase of 0.45 degrees Celsius should have been expected between 1988 and 1997. Compare this now to data from the National Climatic Data Center (a federal facility), U.S. surface temperatures have risen a scant 0.4 degrees Celsius over the last century — hardly earth-shaking. According to climatologist Patrick J. Micheals, “On a 100-year time scale, the models were predicting a warming of about 1.5 degrees Celsius by 1988, although the observed change was only 0.5 degrees Celsius at that time.”

Even in the face of this rather damning criticism, the IPCC persisted, claiming either that base estimates for warming were overestimated or else some other industrial pollutant was interfering with observing warming.

Of course, there also exists a third, unspoken conclusion not reached by Chicken Little: The sky in fact is not falling, and in fact the earth possesses many mechanisms to compensate against any acts of human beings. Consider a study by MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen, whose research on tropical cloud data suggests a global “venting” effect. Warmer sea temperatures would correspond to an increased production of cumulus clouds, the cloud responsible for rain, reducing the amount of moisture reaching the upper atmosphere to trap heat and acting like a natural shade, reflecting incident sunlight back into space. The study itself suggests that this “iris effect” (similar to how the iris of the eye adjusts to the presence of light) would drastically counteract the effects of greenhouse gasses, reducing the warming trend to a range of 0.64 to 1.6 degrees Celsius if the same trends are assumed.

Also overlooked by the ideological environmentalists are the green effects of development — a byproduct of prosperity in wealthy and developed nations is the ability to invest in conservation rather than engage in simple subsistence economy. Consider the impact of technology on farming in America, for example — nowadays, the same amount of land can produce far more than it did a century ago, meaning less land needs to be utilized to obtain the same amount of goods. Taking into account that most deforestation occurs due to the need for arable land for farming and fuel in places without electricity grids, the environmental benefits that development and technology confer are obvious.

Perhaps the most stark evidence against global-warming mania comes from one of its most ardent proponents. Tom Wigley, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, concedes that even if every nation that signed onto the Kyoto Protocol kept its obligations, the next expected reduction in global warming would be a minuscule 0.07 degrees Celsius — barely a drop in the bucket.

Yet the costs of ratifying such an ineffective measure would prove staggering — the Cato Institute estimates that to adhere to the targets set forth in the Kyoto Protocol would reduce the annual GDP of the United States by 2.3 percent — far larger than any recession in recent history. While to some this may seem like an acceptable compromise (for as quixotic of a measure as it would amount to), it fails to account for the fact that this wealth, when put forth into initiatives such as new technology, could be used to reduce the impact of humanity on the planet by producing cleaner, more efficient cars and fuels and more efficient sources of power.

While the United Nations also claims that “known technological option … that exist in operation or pilot plant stage could stabilize atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide over the next 100 years,” the claim is roundly disputed even by its supporters like Dr. Wigley, who counters that “Energy sources that can produce 100 to 300 percent of world power consumption without greenhouse emissions do not exist operationally or as pilot projects.”

And if billions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on improving technology and the efficiency of current power supplies is instead diverted into boondoggles that would do nothing to stop global climate change, such power supplies may never come to be.

Truly, gestures like Kyoto and its kin represent mere tilting at windmills rather than any form of substantial solution. Yet the consequences of such — jeopardizing the future that technology and increased development can bring — is far more insidious.

Steve Skutnik

is a graduate student in nuclear physics from Ames.