‘The globe is cooling, not warming’
AL Gore and UN were both talking through their hats.
This was the assertion of Bienvenido Oplas Jr., Minimal Government Thinkers Inc. president, who said climate change is real but global warming is not and the claim of the former US vice president and of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on global warming is "just a thesis without empirical support."
Oplas, a University of the Philippines economics graduate, told the 158th general assembly meeting of the Foundation for Upgrading the Standard of Education that the signs of the recent times clearly show the reverse—global cooling.
"The current climate is not warming but cooling, at least, starting 2002," he said, stressing that this phenomenon is despite the continued increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.
Oplas said the past and current data on temperature, ocean level, etc. "show that the UN IPCC and Al Gore projects are heavily exaggerated." He said there is no major rise in ocean level and dramatic aberrations in weather, like the super hurricanes in the United States predicted by Gore.
Oplas quoted the Dec. 11, 2008 report of Wilco Hazelger Sr., a scientist of Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute who said that "sea level has risen 20 centimeters in the past century and there is no evidence for accelerated sea level rise."
Oplas also cited a study by the University of Colorado that concluded there is "no major rise in ocean level."
So, he said, why did the UN predict a rise in ocean surface by 0.59 meters and Gore by seven meters?
He also noted that the hurricane season in the United States is from June to November, but there have been "no hurricanes, at least none that made landfall."
On the other hand, there have been massive snowstorms in Europe, with the biggest snowstorm in 25 years occurring last Oct. 20, Oplas said. In the US, he continued, winter appeared to arrive very much earlier this year, with Californians in the west coast already complaining of cold, and Chicagoans in the east coast complaining of wintry skies and low temperatures going down at one time to an 82-year low at 47 degrees Celsius.
In Asia, the Pakistan side of Ladakh has reported the season’s first snowfall last Oct. 25, early by a month.
Oplas advised people to stay cool on the issue of climate change. "Global warming –and cooling and climate cycle – is mainly a natural occurrence. Human activities have a contribution definitely, but not as huge as natural contributions: sun, cosmic rays, geological movement, ocean oscillation, etc."
He said that the warmest period in the past 2,000 years was in the medieval period when there was no substantial concentration of carbon dioxide that is now being demonized for global warming without basis.
And seven years ago, global cooling, at about 0.2C, started "despite continued increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere."