by Steve Stone

Al Gore must hate isoprene.  That stuff just threw the biggest wrench of all into all his years-long blathering about global warming, global climate change, or whatever he wants to call it today.  You know what I’m talking about.

All the enviro-whackos scream “settled science!” every time anyone raises a common-sense objection to all the hysteria surrounding their dire warnings about our planet’s future.  What tends to go missing in discussions is an appreciation for two facts.  The first fact is all those scientists who support those dire warnings are signing on to unproven theories.  There are all kinds of theories that regard environmental science.  Stating a conclusion as incontrovertible fact is to declare it law.  You should take care to note that there’s no “Gore’s Law of Climatology.”  No, siree, there isn’t!  The second fact is all the predictions for the future demise of our planet are derived from computer models.  That should ring a bell in your head, but probably doesn’t.  Just think for a moment about your local weather guesser, that person on your local TV station who tells you what your weather will be like tomorrow. How often is that person wrong?  I know my own favorite weather guesser often gives me a small probability of rain at the same time I’m experiencing a downpour.  Those guys use models too.  Models work according to the age-old principle of GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Climate models are pretty sophisticated, but they do depend on accurate input.  One input has to do with a naturally formed gas called isoprene.  Isoprene is created by all kinds of plants and animals.  Oak trees make a lot of it.  We make our share when we breathe.  Plankton in the oceans create a lot of it, too.  The climate models use 1.9 megatons as the estimate for the world’s annual production of isoprene.  That estimate was considered a standard this September.  In that month a new study was released that seems to prove that old standard to be grievously erroneous.  It’s just a tad light.  It’s missing as much as 3.5 megatons of isoprene that have just been “found.”  1.9 vs 3.5 + 1.9.  Gee, that’s a whale of an error!

The new production figures for isoprene came about when the Institute of Catalysis and Environment in Lyon, France (IRCELYON, CNRS / University Lyon) and the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Liebniz, Austria did some research to prove isoprene is created by solar action on the surface of the world’s oceans.  No one knew that before.  I won’t get into the specifics of how they did that or how isoprene is produced because that part of it isn’t all that important to this discussion; the new findings are.

The really great part of all this newly discovered isoprene has to do with the supposedly accepted fact (fact, mind you) that the gas has a cooling effect on the atmosphere.  It’s an anti-greenhouse gas gas!

So, now you know all those right-wing climate deniers have more sense than Al Gore and his mighty U.N. sponsored legions of scientists who threw their lot in with him.  We (yes, I’m a “denier”) always said the models were wrong, and that time would prove them to be so.  As it turns out, it wasn’t time that did it; it was better science.

If I were one of those politically correct enviro-whacko scientists I think I’d be gritting my teeth a lot right now.  The great unwashed and uneducated of the world can stick their tongues out at all of them with full justification, thanks to one small, but well-conceived study.

Now, having revealed the truth of the climate scam to you, do you think the scientific community is going to reform itself and knock off all the fear-mongering?  Do you think our own government will cease and desist from enforcing all those draconian EPA regulations aimed at having the U.S. of A. become the savior of all humanity?

Probably not!

Not if there’s still money to be made by just ignoring the truth.

Steve Stone is a writer and libertarian activist in Mobile County, Alabama.

 

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