Ha! So much for global warming!

By Tom Quiner

It snowed in Iowa on May 3rd.

Ha! So much for global warming!

Global warming zealots have a quick retort: it’s not about global warming anymore, you conservative ignoramus, it’s about “climate change.”

I’m like a lot of people: I’m a global warming agnostic. There is credible evidence that the earth is warming. But it depends on whom you listen to.

But if we assume the earth is warming, there’s a lot of disagreement on how that will affect the world. There are even credible spokesmen, like Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus, who suggest there are benefits to a warming planet, such as longer growing seasons and fewer deaths by freezing (which is a far bigger issue than death by heat).

If we assume the earth is warming, there is serious disagreement on whether man caused it, and whether man can mitigate its effects in a reasonably cost-effective way.

It’s hard not be a little cynical to “climate change” hysteria. Remember Climategate II from a couple of hears ago? Hacked e-mails of scientists who are proponents of the science/religion of global warming revealed they manipulated data to promote a political agenda, not a scientific one.

They were even willing to threaten scientists who didn’t buy into their religion of global warming.

It looks pretty bad to us agnostics. We need proof of global warming. But we get the feeling we’re being conned by an Elmer Gantry type of global warming mob.

The stakes are high.

According to the Government Accounting Office (GAO), taxpayers spent $106.7 BILLION dollars from 2003 to 2010 fighting climate change.

In addition, taxpayers have spent another $79 BILLION on climate change technology research and tax breaks for “green energy.” Our government has even bundled our money into foreign aid to help other countries with their “climate problems.”

Tax payers have been asked to pick up the tab on another $16.1 BILLION since 1993 in green energy subsidies. We’ve ponied up another $26 BILLION for climate change programs and activities as part of the president’s 2009 Stimulus Bill.

We’ve given money to a whole bunch of these green energy companies including, Solyndra. Abound Solar. Beacon Power. Ener1. Energy Conversion Devices. Evergreen Solar, Inc. Mountain Plaza, Inc.Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsens Mills Acquisition Co. Range Fuels. Raser Technologies. Spectrawatt. Thompson River Power LLC. These are all “green energy” companies that took taxpayer money and filed for bankruptcy.

That’s a lot of money for something that seems more like a religion than a science, especially in light of the debt crisis that grips our country.

So I remain skeptical, notwithstanding snow in May.

Let’s put the drain on the public treasury on hold until real scientists can answer three questions definitively:

1. Is there truly a catastrophic threat to the planet from global warming or climate change, whichever is the term of the moment?

2. If yes, what is causing it? In other words, is this just another natural cycle in the heating and cooling of our planet? Or is it caused by sunspots? Or is it caused by man?

3. If it is catastrophic and caused by man, can we do anything about it?