On September 19, 2010, Alan Caruba published an article about the affects of carbon dioxide on climate change and how it is all just a government scam. What he believes the American government wishes to gain by pushing clean renewable energy sources is unknown. In fact many of his arguments do not have effici
ent information to back them up. He claims that Greenhouse gases do not cause warming, that increased carbon dioxide would be extremely beneficial and that there is no need to try to stop carbon dioxide pollution. All the arguments he makes are weak and are easy to disprove.
Caruba reasons that carbon dioxide does not cause temperature increases because the law of thermodynamics states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only be transformed. The law of thermodynamics is not incorrect, but it
does not in anyway justify that carbon dioxide is not a primary force behind the climate changes that are occurring. The kind of rationale that would use the law of thermodynamics to disprove climate change would only hold claim if our world were a closed system where no energy could escape or enter. This is not the case. The sun provides our world with light and heat energy. New energy from the sun is entering Earth’s atmosphere everyday. Carbon dioxide and other Greenhouse gases trap heat energy from the sun and prevent it from exiting back into space. This is a natural occurrence, but the additional carbon dioxide we are adding to the atmosphere is amplifying this effect.
http://www.dinosaurfact.net/extinction/greenhouseeffect.php
Alan Caruba also comments on the switch from saying global warming to climate change. He purposes that the reason behind the switch is that global warming is a complete fraud and that we only see a climate change because of changes in solar activity. The real reason behind the transition, it helps convey that there are other changes occurring besides rising temperatures. As for the point made that changes in solar activity are responsible for the changes in climate, the sun’s out put has not increased since 1978 and yet we have seen drastic temperature changes since that time (Staudt et al. 2008).
There is no proof behind the theory that more carbon dioxide in the environment will produce greater crop yields. There have not been enough studies done to allow for this statement to be justified. We are only just beginning to understand the affect climate change will have on ecosystems and agriculture. For any benefits that possibly come from climate change there is predicted to be an even greater negative impact. For example, although warmer temperatures may bring longer growing season in some areas other places will suffer from draught or flooding.
Another implausible argument made by Caruba is that, ‘there is zero need to control CO2 as a threat to the environment because, without it, all life on Earth would not exist.’ No environmentalist is trying to prove that carbon dioxide is not necessary for maintaining life on Earth. Oxygen and carbon dioxide are closely linked through the carbon cycle and before the Industrial Revolution there was balance in this cycle. Now there is excess carbon dioxide produced from human actions that is not being absorbed by plants or oceans. This carbon dioxide is gathering in our atmosphere and is contributing to climate change (Staudt et al. 2008).
Climate change is not a government scam. The science behind it is not fake or skewed. Caruba claims that Obama is trying to obtain more political power by authorizing carbon credits. He's insisting that any scientific information gathered that supports carbon dioxide as contributing to climate change has been tampered with. Research on the affects of carbon dioxide are not just from recent years. The research goes back before the industrial revolution even began. How does Caruba purpose that there was a scheme being formed even before there was concern about adding carbon dioxide to the environment?
An example of research done before humans began emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide was the research that first developed the hypothesis of global warming. The Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first purposed that there was a relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature over one hundred years ago. Through the greenhouse effect he found that carbon dioxide as well as other greenhouse gases act as a positive feedback system reinforcing changes to climate that occur due to changes in the Earth’s orbit. He found that the more CO2 that was added to the atmosphere the greater the amount of heat that was trapped and therefore causing temperatures to increase.
Everyone one of Alan Caruba’s claims can easily be disproved. He does not make a single strong argument. Alan Caruba claims that climate change is a complete fraud but the only fraud is himself. Without the proper facts to back up all of his feeble claims he cannot be taken seriously.
Megan Cowan
Reference List:
Caruba, A. September 19, 2010. No Science, Fake Science and the Destruction of the Nation. Global Warming. Emerging Corruption. Retrieved from:
http://emergingcorruption.com/category/global-warming/
Staudt, A. Huddleston, N. Kraucunas I. 2008. Understanding and Responding to Climate Change. Retreived from:
http://americasclimatechoices.org/climate_change_2008_final.pdf
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