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Greenhouse effect is a myth, say scientists
Last updated at 00:37am on 05.03.07
Research said to prove that greenhouse gases cause climate change has been condemned as a sham by scientists.
A United Nations report earlier this year said humans are very likely to be to blame for global warming and there is "virtually no doubt" it is linked to man's use of fossil fuels.
But other climate experts say there is little scientific evidence to support the theory.
In fact global warming could be caused by increased solar activity such as a massive eruption.
Their argument will be outlined on Channel 4 this Thursday in a programme called The Great Global Warming Swindle raising major questions about some of the evidence used for global warming.
Ice core samples from Antarctica have been used as proof of how warming over the centuries has been accompanied by raised CO2 levels.
But Professor Ian Clark, an expert in palaeoclimatology from the University of Ottawa, claims that warmer periods of the Earth's history came around 800 years before rises in carbon dioxide levels.
The programme also highlights how, after the Second World War, there was a huge surge in carbon dioxide emissions, yet global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.
The UN report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was published in February. At the time it was promoted as being backed by more than 2,000 of the world's leading scientists.
But Professor Paul Reiter, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said it was a "sham" given that this list included the names of scientists who disagreed with its findings.
Professor Reiter, an expert in malaria, said his name was removed from an assessment only when he threatened legal action against the panel.
"That is how they make it seem that all the top scientists are agreed," he said. "It's not true."
Gary Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, claims clouds and solar activity are the real reason behind climate change.
"The government's chief scientific adviser Sir David King is supposed to be the representative of all that is good in British science, so it is disturbing he and the government are ignoring a raft of evidence against the greenhouse effect being the main driver against climate change," he said.
Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said climate change is too complicated to be caused by just one factor, whether CO2 or clouds.
He said: "The system is too complex to say exactly what the effect of cutting back on CO2 production would be or indeed of continuing to produce CO2.
"It is ridiculous to see politicians arguing over whether they will allow the global temperature to rise by 2c or 3c."
The documentary is likely to spark fierce criticism from the scientific establishment.
A spokesman for the Royal Society said yesterday: "We are not saying carbon dioxide emissions are the only factor in climate change and it is very important that debate keeps going.
"But, based on the situation at the moment, we have to do something about CO2 emissions."
Reader views (7)
Dear Sirs,
To visualize the CO2 greenhouse myth, one should follow a basic causal approach.
When atmospheric CO2 (of incredibly low concentration) absorbs an infrared photon, this phenomenon increases the energy of one of the CO2 molecules (the usual literature is imprecise in not telling which atom). Such energy increase of a CO2 molecule translates into a first raise of the electric potential energy of the electron concerned, whose kinetic energy simultaneously decreases by half of this gain in potential energy (acceptable approximation derived from Bohr’s hydrogen atom). The net energy balance is accordingly given by the energy of the incident photon (net contribution), which in no way affects the kinetic energy of the molecule, due to energy conservation.
Moreover, the decrease in the electron kinetic energy does not affect the measures of the thermometer, since these express in a first approximation (although good) the inelastic collisions of air molecules with the glass of the thermometer, that is to say in direct function of the average kinetic energy of air molecules, CO2 included. Since the infrared photon is now absent in the air, it cannot produce a shock with the thermometer, which consequently detects less heat. According to this simple reasoning, the absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 cools the air instead of warming it.
- Jacques Chauveheid, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
I saw the programme and it has a credibility equal (may be superior) to the politically-motivated film "An Inconvenient Truth".
I am not a scientist but am well-versed in the art of politics - and the the governmental climate change wagon is obviously a cover for stealth taxes!
Taxing "carbon output" (instead of making it illegal) favours the rich at the expense of the poor.
If Al Gore is on a genuine mission to save the planet, why does he charge people (he's already grossed £40M) who download the film? Surely, a genuine multi-millionaire humanitarian (especially one who flies a private jet and whose family made its fortune out of tobacco and the plantations) would want to make the film free!
- Brendan Murphy, Cheshire
The scientific agreements is 1000 - 1 to these crackpots trying to make a name for themselves. The ITC forced Channel 4 to make an on air apology after the last anti global warming programme made by this director after he mislead the experts involved.
Would you argue with James Hansen, the head climatologist of Nasa, with Stephen Hawking, with David Attenborough, with New Scientist, with the top scientists at Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, the UN, the science academies of the G8 nations? Channel 4 has been completely irresponsible in producing this programme.
- Matthew, London
When scientists ignore evidence that contradicts their models of how the world works we should be sceptical. The danger is that funding bodies seem to have accepted the orthodoxy that emissions are driving climate change, while ignoring other ideas that may challenge the flawed theory. The lack of scientific methodology to the resulting studies being published is troubling, while any dissenter is branded as being in the pocket of Big Oil companies (even if not funded by them) and their research is ignored without considering it on merit. The result is more like religious belief than science. CO2 emissions may be contributing to evident climate change, but there may be other factors at work beyond human control. It feels like its part of the arrogance of the human condition that we think we are always masters of our own destiny. If changes in solar activity creates substantial climate change maybe we will have to learn to accept that sometimes we are not in control and instead devote resources to adapting to the changes around us.
- G, London
The scientists in question are in the minority of scientists worldwide, and not one of them will ever err on the side of caution. They all state that we should do nothing and see what happens, which if global warming is more fact than theory will leave us well and truly up the creek by the time it's been proved.
- Lloyd, London
Co2 emissions, green house gases, global waming, rising sea levels, methane etc etc
All just another exuse for Governments and tin-pot-dictator mayors to raise tax levels even higher for no tangible benefit.
- Marc, London, UK
Get these scientists to come out and work on a farm as I have done for the past 40 something years and if their eyes work better than their brains they will see the changes.
- Dennis, Taplow, U.K.
