Marc Morano, CNSNews.com
Wednesday, May 15, 2002

The scientists met Monday on Capitol Hill to expose what they see as a dearth of scientific evidence about the theory of global warming.

Hartwig Volz, a geophysicist with RWE Research Lab in Germany, questioned the merit of the climate projections coming from the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC climate projections have fueled worldwide support for the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to restrict the greenhouse gases thought to cause global warming.

Volz noted that IPCC does not even call the climate models "predictions" and instead refers to them as "projections" or "story lines." Volz said the projections might be more aptly termed "fairy tales."

Monday's luncheon was sponsored by Frontiers of Freedom Institute and titled "Whatever Happened to Global Warming? Climate Science Does Not Support the Kyoto Protocol."

S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist with the University of Virginia and the Environmental Policy Project, called IPCC's global warming projections "completely unrealistic."

"Prediction is a very difficult business, particularly about the future," he said.

'Extreme Scenarios'

Singer accused IPCC of "assuming extreme scenarios of population growth and fossil fuel consumption" and called on the Bush administration to "assemble another team using the IPCC report, using the same facts" to "write a different summary."

Dr. Ulrich Berner, a geologist with the Federal Institute for Geosciences in Germany, said global temperatures have varied greatly in the earth's history and are unrelated to human activity.

"The climate of the past has varied under natural conditions without the influence of humans," Berner said.

Berner declared that an extensive analysis of carbon dioxide (C02) concentrations in the ice core of Greenland showed that elevated C02 in the atmosphere does not necessarily lead to temperature increases.

"There are numerous temperature changes which are not mimicked by the CO2 concentration," he explained.

"Carbon dioxide doesn't police climatic changes. Climatic changes have always occurred and will for the future always occur," Berner added.

Singer agreed. "The balance of evidence suggests that there has been no appreciable warming since 1940. This would indicate that the human effects on climate must be quite small."

Blame It on the Sun

Singer pointed to the sun as a major culprit in climate change. "The sun is responsible for most, and perhaps all of the short-term climate changes we observe," he said.

Environmental groups were quick to dismiss the scientific skepticism on global warming. Ariana Silverman, a spokeswoman for Sierra Club's Global Warming & Energy program, disputed the panel's claim that climate science did not support the Kyoto Protocol.

"It is very difficult to make that claim. There is a consensus in the scientific community," Silverman said.

She admitted there was room for skepticism about global warming models because "nobody knows; we don't have god-like abilities" to predict the future.

Sierra Club believes we need to "cut down on gasses right now and make cars go further on a gallon of gas." She predicted that if no action is taken, there could be "major changes to our climate and changes to our ecosystems with species dying."

"Climate is not a responsible thing for us to be changing," Silverman added.

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