We need unbiased debate on climate change

I just wanted to respond to the blowback that I received from my recent column titled "Trump is right on Paris climate accord" which appeared in the Cape Gazette July 11.

The critics characterized my thoughts as "ineptitude," "picayune ramblings," "agent of doubt," "subterfuge" and "cherry-picking" with Don Flood apocalyptically noting that, "We're racing - or should be - to save our planet..." implying that Donald Trump is the skunk at the garden party.

But, they did not disqualify any of my facts as erroneous, only demeaning them as "cherry picking."

One said interestingly that I "did not say much about global warming (or why it is happening)." That's true because I was focused on the estimated failing results of the Paris Accord,... (only .2 degrees (C) reduction by 2100 and enormous costs ($ trillions).

But, it makes me think about the big picture of climate change, sea level rise and the push behind it all.

First, I've always wondered why the nomenclature of global warming was changed to climate change, a rather nebulous, milk-toast moniker that seems valueless. Everyone knows the climate changes daily. Why the marketing revision?

Well, according to Anthony Watts, retired meteorologist, "part of the reason is...climate change can be used as a catch-all phrase without the inconvenient pause in warming." Pause...you know, the one that the critics never mention?

It's the pause that the liberal-leaning Economist magazine asked about in their "Climate Change Special Report" on Nov. 28, 2015, noting that, "Between 1998 and 2012 humans pumped unprecedented quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but the average global temperatures hardly rose.

Why?"

Answering the question is professor Ian Plimer, emeritus professor of Earth Sciences and Mining Geology - University of Melbourne saying that, "CO2 does not drive atmospheric temperature change...geology shows that all six of the great ice ages were initiated when atmospheric CO2 was far higher than at present...and the CO2 theory needs to be rejected."

You can also look at meteorologist Joe Bastardi's geological timescale graph comparing temperature and CO2. They do not show direct correlation over the years (https://patriotpost.us/opinion/48675).

Then, there's the challenge to the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Association's claim about heat breaking records we hear all the time. Climate expert Bob Tisdale and Anthony Watts have noted that to "manufacture warming during the hiatus (warming pause) NOAA adjusted pre-hiatus data downward...It's the same old story... the adjustments go towards cooling the past and thus increasing the slope of temperature rise."

Just like famous climatologist Michael Mann and his "hockey stick" graph which eliminated the medieval warming period to sell the story that warming in the 20th century was unique and came only from man-made CO2 (see at www.a-sceptical mind.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hockey-stick).

Or, the scandal reported by Larry Bell in a 2011 Forbes article about a new release of incriminating email exchanges between leading climate scientists.
As an example, he quotes Phil Jones, who served as a lead author for one of the key chapters in IPCC's (Intl' Panel for Climate Change) Fourth Assessment Report (2007) saying that, "Basic problem is that all (climate) models are wrong - not got enough middle and low level clouds..."

My critics should promote an unbiased debate about global warming/climate change to get to the truth.

It's not settled science. But I won't hold my breath.

Geary Foertsch
Rehoboth