Cousin Vern says Climate Warming is Bullshit: and he is an authority on that

There are people, claiming to be scientists or to use the findings of climate science, who deny that climate warming is occurring due to humans releasing carbon in the atmosphere.

Generally they use “cycle theory” that shows that the climate of the earth corresponds to cycles named after the renowned scientist Milutin Milanković who first studied these cycles. Geology and astronomy bear out these cycles which due the tilt and orbit of the earth gets more or less sun.

My cousin-in-law Vernon, a classic denier for partisan reasons, sent me a talk given by Peter Temple on cycle change as a way to deny that the earth is warming due to human activity. I urge you to watch it here or go to his website here. Peter Temple is an interesting guy who uses “cycle theory” as a theory of everything and then uses statistics to fit his theory (in war, business, history, sociology, etc.). He is also a consultant for the coal and oil companies.

But the point is that Temple does not use climate science based on physics which has analyzed the change in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution and measured the increasing amount of CO2 and its effects. Nor does he have any expertise in doing so. He graphs these cycles to show that the earth will soon experience an ice age.

If you want a discussion by a real scientist on cycle theory attached to climate change, go to realclimate. Be sure to read the discussion as well. The author makes clear he is very well aware of the presence of near-periodic variability in sunspots, the tides, the tilting of the earth, and other factors that contribute to cycles. The objection here is to the misuse of these facts to make unsubstantiated claims about the predictability of climate.

Happily, many Republicans and Democrats are taking the issue of climate change out of partisan politics and looking at the science for the truth instead of just trying to confirm their wealthy backers’ conclusions. I indeed would be most pleased if the warming of the earth and its worldwide effects on people, especially the most vulnerable, were a Chinese hoax. See this conservative republican view.

The issue is too important to be caught in partisanship. And it was not a partisan issue until recently. Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi together in 2008 made a public TV statement to the American people about the importance of climate warming and the need to act. And the Pentagon report on it this year was sobering. It’s not a Democratic or Republican or a conservative/liberal issue. It’s a human issue.

Sure, it’s good to discuss different points of view. But here I would advocate the conservative/safe approach when most climate scientists, no matter their party or religion are giving us a preponderance of evidence in global warming. I don’t want to take a chance on my grandchildren’s future when there are alternatives.