An Inconvenient Truth - For Whom?

Nobel Peace Prize-winner Al Gore has it all figured out.  The earth is heating up, and it's all mankind's doing.  Scientists around the world agree with him and present their facts to a world that's now fearful that within the next decade, the polar ice caps will be gone, sea levels will rise and flood out all coastal cities and towns, and devastating changes in the earth's climate and weather patterns will wreak havoc with our way of life.  Some hint that this could very well be the end of humankind.

I have two questions for Al Gore:  How do you know this?  And why won't you discuss the issue with those who disagree with you?

Mr. Gore has at his disposal a plethora of scientists and experts who can shovel out data faster than most people can assimilate it.  When asked where he gets his data, he replies with a statement that generally includes the comment that "leading experts in the field" now "all agree" that we are in a "crisis situation" when it comes to our global climate.  Since Mr. Gore believes he is in the right, and has people who are willing to back up his theories, he insists, as he has stated many times publicly, that "the debate is over", and global warming is a reality that can be blamed on mankind.

However, does Mr. Gore have all the facts?  Does the scientific community as a whole agree with him and his assumptions?  Many would say no, and I would be one of them.

For instance, millions of years ago the Sun was not as large or as hot as it is today.  In fact, astronomers say that when the Sun was first "born", it was probably similar to a red or orange dwarf.  It was smaller and burned cooler than it does now.  As the sun ages, it will continue to brighten and grow hotter until it exhausts its supply of hydrogen, at which point it will begin burning helium.  When it does, it will expand and its outer surface will most likely engulf the Earth, destroying life on the planet.  That is not the fault of the human race; that is the normal evolutionary process of a star, which mankind can do nothing about.

Or what about the effects of precession and the earth's orbital path around the sun?  The Earth spins on its axis like a top, and like most tops, it wobbles as it spins.  Earth's axis makes one big circle every 26,000 years.  In addition, the Earth's path around the sun is not a perfect circle, but an ellipse, more egg-shaped than round.  At one end of the egg, the Earth is closer to the Sun than it is at the other end of the egg.  Currently, at that point the Southern Hemisphere is tilted more towards the sun than the Northern Hemisphere.  Southerners experience summer while Northerners experience winter.  Six months later, when the Earth is at the other end of the egg and furthest from the Sun, it's the Northern Hemisphere that is tilted towards the sun (and experiences summer) rather than the Southern (which experiences winter).  Because of precession, in 13,000 years the seasons will be reversed.  The Northern Hemisphere will be closest to the sun when it experiences summer, making summers even hotter than they are now.  And when the Northern Hemisphere experiences winter, it will be further away from the sun than it is now, making winters colder than they are now.  Is that man's fault?  No - it's just Nature.

These are only two of a number of arguments that some scientists point to when trying to refute Mr. Gore's claims that the only reason our earth is warming up is because of human interference with the ecosystem.  Yet when these scientists, who also happen to be experts in their fields, try to discuss their position with other scientists or the media, they are pooh-poohed and called "deniers", comparable to those who say the Holocost never happened.  When someone raises an issue with the data presented, or questions the methods used to obtain such data, cries of "corporate payoff" are hurled.  In effect, somebody has decided that this is the way it is, and anyone who holds a different opinion is vilified for it.

The issue of global warming is a complicated one, something that cannot be answered with a few sets of numbers and a cocky, demeaning attitude.  Mr. Gore, if you do indeed have all the answers, why won't you have dialog with your critics and refute their arguments?  For hundreds of years that's what science has done:  It tests its theories and reports the facts of the testing, whether the original hypothesis was proved or not.  The way you're handling it, it's more like the religion that tried to put down science for hundreds of years.  Your belief, or faith if you will, is more important than the facts.  And as we all know, Faith never needs to be proved.  We are dangerously close to a new Inquisition, where Mr. Gore has appointed himself the High Priest of the religion of World Ecology and uses his influence and the media to ridicule his opponents.