Cities across the Northeast and Atlantic Coast are breaking snowfall records and scientists are now rescinding claims of global warming-induced hurricanes. It all leads to growing skepticism over the climate change phenomenon.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which wrote in a 2007 report that climate change was “unequivocal” and “very likely” is now facing claims that the report contained numerous factual errors. The IPCC won a Nobel Peace Prize for that report.
E-mails recently uncovered from a UK climate research facility show a systematic initiative to silence scientists who tried to bring up climate change objections. And the IPCC now says it was far off-base when it claimed that glaciers in the Himalayas could melt by 2035.
“We know that there were some problems,” said IPCC scientist Chris Field in a Wall Street Journal article. “All the evidence so far is that the problems were relatively minor, but there were problems.”
In a recent poll at Yale and George Mason University, skepticism about man-made climate change is growing. The number of those who don’t believe in the phenomenon has doubled sine 2008, to 16%. Only 10% now say they are “alarmed” about climate change, down from 18%, and those who say they are “concerned” went from 33% to 29%.
Adding more fuel to fire is that the UN’s link between climate change and hurricanes is now also in doubt. Scientific journal Nature Geoscience has published a report that disputes nearly all claims that human activity had anything to do with a shift in hurricane frequency.
In addition to the scientific problems that have arisen, the reason for the decreased public concern is likely because of other more pressing issues. Unemployment and economic concerns continue to rise, and people are more focused on current issues like health care reform.
In response to all of this, global warming priest Al Gore is unwavering. Speaking to the errors in IPCC’s report, Gore said, “The reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes.”
