Earlier this week, a co-founder of the environmental group Greenpeace told a Senate panel something unexpected for a green activist: Climate change is not caused by humans.
Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist who helped found the organization in 1971 and remained a member for 15 years before leaving in 1986 because he disagreed with the group’s turn from science to politics, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee,听鈥淭here is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth鈥檚 atmosphere over the past 100 years,鈥 according to a . 鈥淭oday, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth, and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species.”
Moore added that humans evolved as a tropical species and can only survive colder climates today because of fire, clothing, and housing. He also said that during the Ice Age, carbon dioxide was 10 times higher than today, but humans still prospered鈥. Moore blamed environmental groups like Greenpeace for spreading misinformation. Activists use faulty computer models and scare tactics to advance their political agendas, he alleged.
Meanwhile, American and British scientists collaborated on a paper released yesterday in 听explaining that, despite occurrences like this winter’s polar vortex, any perceived global-warming slowdown will likely be brief.
Scientists from Britain’s Royal Academy and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences reported that since a very warm 1998, the warming rate of Earth’s surface has slowed slightly鈥攂ut this change should be only temporary. Notably, the study used accessible language, likely in an attempt to garner a larger, more diverse readership.