“Scientific research based on fact—not ideology.” That’s what Democratic hopeful John Kerry is promising. But there are some pertinent facts about global warming that Kerry will probably ignore.

Kerry has recently attacked President Bush’s record on science, including his actions on the issue of climate change. He accuses Bush of underplaying the threats climate change poses and the role humans play in it, and ignoring the scientific consensus on the issue.

Yet if Kerry his true to his word, it will only be a matter of time before Kerry stands alongside the President on the issue of anthropogenic climate change—for scientific facts stand in stark contrast to the climate-change-is-catastrophic ideology.
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Media hypes a jump in carbon dioxide, ignoring recent years’ CO2 growth rate fluctuations. In fact, there has been no significant trend for 27 years.

The Associated Press newswire lit up over the weekend with reports that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration grew last year at a record pace. But AP neglected to mention the year-to-year fluctuations that characterize the CO2 growth rate and that in fact no significant trend has existed for 27 years.

Measurements made atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano showed that this winter’s CO2 level was greater than last year’s readings by about 3 parts per million (ppm). Missing from AP’s report was that growth the year before was only about 2 ppm, and the year before that was 1.5 ppm, and the year before that was 1.2 ppm, and two years prior to that, the growth rate was 2.9 ppm. In other words, there is a fair degree of fluctuation in the year-to-year to year values of the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration. So a year with a large growth rate is no more or less newsworthy than a year (such as 2000) that had a low growth rate.
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