By Peter Mannino
The past few weeks have seen a disturbing trend of relatively high profile opinion columnists deciding that global warming is, well, not real. Columnist Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard wrote in a recent column that “the more the case for man-made warming falls apart, the more hysterical Gore gets about an imminent catastrophe.”
When Talking Points Memo asked Barnes to reveal this newfound evidence that global warming is not real, he simply said, “I’m not going to do your research for you.” Translation: I have no evidence.
The other pundit involved in this mini-controversy is George Will, who wrote a column titled “Dark Green Doomsayers,” in which he makes claims about climate change that has the science community up in arms. For example, Will writes “According to the University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979,” but only hours after his column was published, the Arctic Climate Research Center posted on its Web site that, “We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on Feb. 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on Feb. 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km.” Unfortunately, The Washington Post has been unwilling to publish a retraction.
With the recent misinformation being published, I felt I should make the case for manmade climate change, so here it goes.
First and foremost is the well known and basic fact that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. As a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide traps heat inside the Earth’s atmosphere.
If this is true then more carbon dioxide should produce higher temperatures and less carbon dioxide should produce lower temperatures, and indeed, if you look at the relationship between these two variables over time, the connection is very strong. To an extent, these greenhouse gases are good because they have produced a climate that is favorable to maintaining life.
Global warming can become an issue when too much greenhouse gas, especially carbon dioxide, is released into the atmosphere. Again, if you look at the data, the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere has risen steadily since the Industrial Revolution.
For most of the Earth’s history carbon dioxide has been between 180 and 300 parts per million, but since the industrial revolution the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen to today’s number of 385 parts per million.
If the case for global warming is accurate, then the record level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should be followed by a record increase in the average yearly temperature. Again, when actually looking at the average yearly temperature, you would notice that the last ten years have been the hottest on record.
You may hear some people deny this last point; they say that we have been experiencing a “cooling spell” over the last ten years. When you hear this argument, do not be persuaded; it is misinformed at best. The argument is based on the fact that 1998 was a particularly hot year, and the subsequent ten years have not been as hot, but this does not change the fact that the past ten years have been the hottest ever.
The average temperature has been trending upward, and one particular blip in the data does not change this fact; it would be like saying that the recent one day rise in the stock market proves that there is no downward trend when, quite obviously, the downward trend exists.
In short, the case for global warming is even stronger today than it was yesterday. When you hear global warming deniers like Fred Barnes or George Will make their case against global warming, just remember my short and easy argument, and that should put them in their place.
Peter Mannino is a sophomore political science student. You may e-mail him at