House of Cards

When global warming was first advanced as a theory, historians shrugged it off. The world was a bit warmer in the 1930s and much warmer 1,000 years ago. The period between the 14th and 19th century was a major cool period known as the Little Ice Age. Any warming in the 20th century should be expected as the world cycle back to a warm phase.

This argument was finally answered in 2001 when the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a chart showing global climate for the last 1,000 years. According to this chart, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were nothing but local variations. World temperature had been amazingly constant until the beginning of the 20th century. Suddenly the temperature shot up making the graph look something like a hockey stick - a name that stuck.

Since then the Hockey Stick has been discredited on numerous fronts. The measurements used prior to the 20th century came fro tree ring data. As trees grow older, their rings are deformed. There are ways of compensating for this mathematically. Michael Mann, the author of the Hockey Stick, used a method that minimized variations. If a different method is used then the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age are back.

Mann under represented some samples. Most of North America's history is based on a single forest in northern US. Similar omissions occurred in the records based on actual temperature readings. Areas hundreds of miles in diameter are represented by a single thermometer record.

While tree rings are a good proxy for weather, they are not the only one. Other proxies world-wide show indications of prior warm and cool periods.

The margin of error in the readings is wide enough to allow nearly any shape graph.

Independent researchers working from Mann's published papers have not been able to reproduce the Hokey Stick.

Even Mann has conceded problems in his graph.

For more, see Breaking the Hockey Stick, Climate Legacy of the Hockey Stick, Bending the Hockey Stick, Mann's Hockey Stick Wrong?, The Hockey Stick, A New Low in Climate Science, or simply Google "hockey stick mann" and look at any of the top results.

Still, the Hockey Stick continues to be published as the definitive temperature record. Why do people hang onto it so tightly? One reason is that it was so well disseminated. As with many false claims, the initial claim gets the headline and the refutation is buried or not even covered. Also, the Hockey Stick "proves" global warming. True believers disregard evidence that conflicts with their belief.

Among global warming scientists there is a more urgent reason to cling to the Hockey Stick - tipping points.

Carbon Dioxide is not enough to raise global temperatures by itself. The theory is that it will raise temperatures enough to cause a tipping point which will cause other tipping points.

The theory is the carbon dioxide will warm the climate enough to increase the amount of water vapor in the air. This is a much more efficient greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide so it will raise temperatures even more which will increase the water vapor content further. This causes increased low level clouds with trap more heat. The polar ice caps melt, exposing dark ground to the sun, reducing the amount of sunlight being reflected away and increasing temperatures even more. Etc.

The Hockey Stick is vital to this theory because it says that we are living in the warmest times in recorded history. As we continue into uncharted temperatures we will hit the various tipping points.

But - if temperatures have been warmer than today within the last 1,000 years and no tipping points were reached then the whole model collapses. Global warming goes from a certainty to an outside possibility if the earth continues its modest warming for another two or three centuries.

Instead of talking about the world out children will live in, we are talking about a future as far removed as George Washinton and powdered wigs.

Should we kill ourselves, literally, because of climate changes forecast centuries in the future? Especially when current temperatures are within the norm?

The theory of global warming has become an article of faith among environmentalists. It has several advantages over the previous climate theory - that we are on the on-set of a new Ice Age. The Ice Age theory simply said that we are overdue for one and that there is nothing we can do to stop it. Global warming, on the other hand, is supposed to be caused by human and can be stopped if we only live the way that deep environmentalists wanted us to live all along.

When reasonable people suggest that more data needs to be gathered, the global waring alarmists reply with hysterical urgency that it may already be too late.

As I have shown, there are real flaws in the basic assumptions of global warming that need to be addressed before any action is taken.