War of Words

During the course of researching global warming, I have discovered a little war playing out on the Web....

In the wake of the U.N.'s report stating that climate change is happening and was very likely caused by Man, you'd expect the fossil fuel companies to come out fighting. Afterall, it's not like they've got much choice: If they just accept the findings, which are backed by hundreds of scientists and checked by thousands more, they'll be as good as saying goodbye to their industry overnight.

Hell, in this day and age, they'd probably be sued by their share-holders and employees for dereliction of duty or something!

But, instead of going toe-to-toe with the scientists by debunking their climate change data with their own peer reviewed scientific papers, they've chosen to engage in a kind of whispering campaign 'backed' by oft-repeated, long-since discredited scientific claims.

One such claim is that global warming is merely a result of ground-based thermometers being swallowed up by the 'heat island effect' from expanding cities.

An urban heat island is where towns and cities are significantly warmer than their rural surroundings. So the climate deniers are saying that, as cities expand, they swallow up more and more weather stations, therefore giving the impression that the global temperature is rising.

Numerous studies have concluded that there is no such influence because most of the gauges are sited in parks and open areas within the cities. Besides, the rural thermometers also show very similar rises.

Yet, despite these ideas have been proven wrong, they continue to be repeated by the deniers as if they were still valid!

So beware of any anti-global warming 'science' you find on the Web or hear in the media, it's probably just baseless propoganda.