The video in my last post,  Climate Change – Part II – Looking Beyond Carbon, provided an overview of how both the sun and water vapor might both be contributing to changes in global temperature. The key points from Part II are summarized as follows:

1. Changes in solar output shows good correlation over the last few hundred years but does not account for the temperature rise over the last 40 years.
2. The role of water vapor is more complex and probably involves interactions between the sun and cosmic rays – no clear correlation with more recent temperature rises.

So much for scientific overview of climate change.  In Parts III and IV of this 4 part series of video clips we learn how various myths have evolved out of the global warming debate.

What’s A Myth? – Simply put, a myth is a popular belief with no basis in fact. You know those depictions of the Vikings in various movies where they wear helmets with horns? Almost an iconic image of the Vikings, right? Do you think they really wore helmets with a pair of horns sticking out of them? Think about it. Would you go into battle wearing a helmet with two convenient handles to snag on something or for your foe to grab and toss you every which way or even break your neck? No, I think not. So what’s up the horns? H0llywood  is what’s up. The movie industry just made it up because it looked cool and now we’re stuck with this image forever. Just try to erase this myth. Fortunately, it’s benign. No Vikings around today to offend. The thing is, scholars and historians know that the horned Viking helmet is a myth. But nobody is going to listen to some lame academic go around trying to correct an urban myth. Vikings wore horned helmets. Period. Ask anybody. But not all myths are benign.

Climate Change – Part III – The Anatomy of  A Climate Change Myth? – Here’s an  example of  a persistent climate change myth with no solid scientific foundation. In 1974,  Time Magazine ran an article speculating about a coming ice age. The article notes that “telltale signs are everywhere” but makes no specific references to peer reviewed studies or of a scientific consensus. It’s mostly speculative popular science fluff. Ironically, the vast majority of published scientific papers on climate change around that time were concerned about global warming, not an impending ice age. Yet this ice age article has sustained a myth that gets referenced over an over again in the media and by politicians – despite the absence of clear scientific support.  The following video discusses this further.

Climate Change – Part IV – Gore vs. Durkin? – Just because you win an Oscar doesn’t mean you’re right – even if you’re a true “believer”. In this last of 4 videos,  myth making is revealed in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” (his book and movie). He runs fast and loose with the Vostok CO2 vs. Temp data (doesn’t everybody?!!).  He projects a fantastic 20 foot rise in sea level by the end of the century when the best guess is 3 feet.  There’s more but why spoil the fun.  And to give equal time to the “deniers” there’s Martin Durkin’s 2007  “The Great Global Warming Swindle” which attempts to debunk the whole subject of global warming. Some of the crap that Durkin pulls in this documentary is quite grand  including fabricated data and serious misquoting of scientists who are actually in his video……plus some good old myth making of his own. You can find additional debunking of Durkin’s debunking via this link. The final part IV video is below.

Tags: climate change, debunking, global warming, scientific debate