William M. Gray

Despite increasing amounts of CO2 gas in the atmosphere, mean global surface temperatures have not shown any increase over the past 18 years.

In addition:

• Raw U.S. mean surface temperatures and daily high surface temperature records (without any tampering) have shown a weak decline since the warm 1930s period.

• Winter snow cover has been gradually increasing across the northern hemisphere in recent years.

• Antarctic sea ice is now at record high levels. Net global sea ice has shown no long-period downward trend.

• U.S. and global droughts, floods and severe weather have shown no significant changes over the past half century when atmospheric CO2 amounts have risen by 35 percent.

• The United States is currently experiencing the longest continuous period (nine years) without a major hurricane strike. Tornado activity has been below average the past three years.

I strongly recommend the reader consult the Internet blog Real Science by Steve Goddard for much more documentation on the ever-increasing failure of the CO2 global warming projections.

Most weather-climate observations of recent decades are not following the predictions of nearly all the 30 or so global numerical climate models and the continuous alarmist global warming pronouncements of nearly all U.S. and foreign governments, and nearly all the world's media outlets. The general public, without the technical background to judge the scientific reliability of these many and continuous warming pronouncements, have been brainwashed. I am sure the coming decades of observations will add more verification for the discrediting of this catastrophic warming hypothesis.

I attribute the climate alterations of the past few centuries and decades to be primarily a response to the globe's deep ocean current changes of which salinity variation is the primary driver and for which CO2 increases play no role.

Natural climate change and severe and unusual weather events have always occurred and will continue to occur in the future. The frequency and intensity of these events has not increased over the time that CO2 greenhouse gases have gone up.

There may be some very minor human influence to recent climate change but its magnitude is too small to be confidently measured and understood. Whatever human-induced climate change that may have occurred and will occur in the next 50-100 years will be quite small and largely benign.

There is nothing we humans can do that would have any appreciable influence on the globe's coming century's climate. Those advocating that our government take action on stopping climate degradation don't have the technical background to understand how the globe's climate functions to realize the futility of their request. This includes a majority of our country's government officials, scientists and our country's media.

Switching to renewable energy will greatly raise our energy costs and significantly lower our country's and the world's standard of living. Economic growth dictates that we continue and expand our fossil-fuel usage. Such energy expansion cannot possibly bring about the climate degradation that has been so widely alleged.

Higher levels of CO2 should be more beneficial than detrimental to humanity. Increased CO2 will bring an enhancement of vegetation growth, a small global rainfall increase and a very slight global temperature rise — all positive changes for humankind. History has a number of examples where the majority has been wrong on an important scientific issue. This will prove to be another one.

William M. Gray is a professor emeritus, Colorado State University.