Walk on the Wild Side

Walk on the Wild Side

The issue of Global Warming has been a hot topic for several years for both the scientific community and for conspiracy theorist who believe that the science behind global warming has been invented and is being perpetuated by organizations and governments because of financial or ideological reasons. Proponents of such allegations refer to the scientific consensus as a "global warming hoax” or "global warming fraud".

Many individual scientists and scientific organizations such as NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), NASA Finds 2011, Ninth Warmest Year on Record the United States Global Change Research Program which consists of thirteen United States federal entities Participating Departments and Agencies, CFR  (Council on Foreign Relations) and many others have devoted countless amount of hours and money to research the global warming issue and its many theories.

Along with the growing number of studies and organizations being conducted and developed to study this global “hot issue”, the number of groups and individuals who believe in the global warming conspiracy theory also has exploded over the past several years. Like many other conspiracy theories, many of the global warming conspiracy theorists believe that the USA (United States of America) federal government, individual state governments, politician leaders and other world country governments are involved in making the so-called global warming problem as big of an issue as what it has become.

One of the most well-known and possibly most well educated believer of the global warming conspiracy theory is researcher, former weather forecaster for the United States Air Force, and current Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University (CSU) and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Dr. William M. Gray.

Dr. Gray has been described by many in the scientific, meteorological and media worlds as being one of the world’s leading experts on tropical storms and has been labeled by MSNBC (Microsoft and the National Broadcasting Company) hosts as being a top meteorologist. Dr. Gray has made statements regarding his personal beliefs of the global warming “hoax” very clear in the past. According to the article Global-Warming Skeptics Continue to Punch Away which was published by the Seattle Times in 2006, Dr. Gray stated the following about according to him, not being approached on his beliefs about the global warming trend, "I've been in meteorology over 50 years. I've worked damn hard, and I've been around. My feeling is some of us older guys who've been around have not been asked about this. It's sort of a baby-boomer, yuppie thing."

According to the article published by the Seattle Times, Dr. Gray had lost much of the government funding for his research programs and he has had to put his own money, more than $100,000, into keeping his research going.  Dr. Gray believes that humans are not responsible for the warming of the earth and has stated that "We're brainwashing our children." He asked, "How can we trust climate forecasts 50 and 100 years into the future (that can’t be verified in our lifetime) when they are not able to make shorter seasonal or yearly forecasts that could be verified?"The Independent Institute lists Dr. Gray as one of their Research Fellows

Another believer that the global warming issue is a conspiracy theory or hoax is U.S. Senator Inhofe who was said to be a former believer of the global warming theory. The following video features an interview which Senator Inhofe had on Fox News in 2009 regarding global warming, which he believes to be a “hoax” set up by the UN (United Nations) and the democratic side of the U.S. government.

Even Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has expressed his thoughts about global warming. Rick Santorum told attendees at the Gulf Coast Energy Summit in Biloxi, Mississippi, to trust his judgment on the environment, highlighting his position on climate change—that is, that it's a liberal myth. "The dangers of carbon dioxide? Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is," Santorum said, according to the Associated Press. Below is a video interview which Rick Santorum did with MSNBC regarding his beliefs that global warming is a conspiracy and how he feels that scientific researches doesn't back up the issue of global warming. 

Many scientific studies have been conducted over the past several years proving that the Earth’s atmosphere and climate has been increasingly changing since meteorological and scientific data has been studied since the year 1880. NASA provides the following chart on their website for the findings of change in global temperature from the year 1880 to the year 2011.

             From looking at the above chart, it is obvious that scientific studies have found that the Earth’s annual temperature has continued to increase most of the years since global climate data has been recorded, with the change in global temperature rising at an alarming rate between the years of 1980 and 2011.

                
             Forbes Magazine published an online article in July of 2011 regarding the global warming conspiracy theory and spoke about how British journalist James Delingpole believes in the global warming conspiracy theory and how he stated that he promised to show that the man-made global warming is a fraud, one that has already cost billions of dollars and is a clear and present danger to our liberty and democratic traditions — and, ironically, to the environment itself.


              With the exception of Dr. Gray and a few other scientists, most scientists who have studied the global climatic change agree that the planet’s climate and atmosphere are changing and changing for the worst. Most also believe that these changes are due in large part to the human abuse to our planet. Studies have been conducted by scientists in an attempt to predict the future increase of the global temperature.  The following graph was released in 2007 showing what some scientists predict to be the change in global temperature in degrees Celsius between the years of 2070 and 2100 if the current rate of temperature change continues.

  I have to agree with the findings and beliefs of many of these scientists on the ever increasing and troubling trend of global temperature and environmental changes. I feel that we humans as a species need to pay much more attention to the global warming issues which have become so well debated in recent history and if we don’t, the future generations of humans, animal and plant lives will have to adapt to a completely different environmental planet then what we all know today. Along with these changes will come far less beautiful places for our children’s children and their children to admire.

One example of this is the quickly decrease amount of natural glaciers located at Glacier National Park in the U.S. State of Montana and the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and British Columbia along with other glacial areas found around the globe. According to the article Recent Global Glacier Retreat Overview , studies conducted by the U.S. National Park Service and U.S. Geological Service focusing on the decrease in amount of glacial cover in the park, Only 27% of the 99 km² area of Glacier National Park covered by glaciers in 1850 remained by 1993. An increase of approximately 1 degree Celsius (2 °F) in average summer temperatures is reflected in reduced glacier sizes. A computer model indicates that present rates of increasing warming will eliminate all glaciers in Glacier National Park by 2030. It is believed that the glaciers are quickly decreasing in both size and volume because of the global warming issue and that the behaviors of us humans and our contribuations in playing a role in helping cause the global climatic warming issue.