31,478 scientists who do not believe global warming is caused by mankind

My objective in a number of recent emails has been to present important information that the news media mostly neglects. Global warming has become political, and even the Bush administration eventually swallowed the "man-caused global warming and we must do something about it" pill. Al Gore's "An inconvenient truth" has been shown throughout our classrooms and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on the internet. He has received international acclaim for this film. Any challenge to his presentation has been largely ignored. Sadly, the film contains glaring scientific inaccuracies, most notable of which are the critical premises that increases in carbon dioxide levels cause global warming and that carbon dioxide levels have never been higher. Both scary, both wrong. Carbon dioxide levels increase after rather than before the rise in temperature, so can't possibly cause the temperature increase. Carbon dioxide concentration, currently less than 400 ppm (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html ), has been as high as 7000 ppm (http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html ). John Stossel has had several of the limited number of media reports disputing man caused global warming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZcp_wcDXec and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUlGoaAOzqA&NR=1 Here is an excellent presentation by several environmental scientists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDI2NVTYRXU and several prominent scientists who are now skeptics: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad-494b-dccb00b51a12&Region_id=&Issue_id

Scientific issues are never properly resolved by taking a vote or by counting the number of advocates. Nonetheless, we are constantly reminded by the news media and by many of our politicians that the overwhelming majority of scientists believe in man-caused global warming. If almost every scientist believes it to be true, global warming caused by man must be pretty much an established fact. You have undoubtedly heard that. But are you aware of the results of the global warming petition found at http://www.petitionproject.org/purpose_of_petition.php ?You can click on this site and see a current state by state list of 31,478 persons (as of May 25, 2009)with degrees in science who do NOT believe that global warming is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide or that global warming is caused by mankind. A detailed scientific presentation is also given at this site. Isn't it fascinating that our news media can ignore these 31,478 signatures while reporting extensively on the 1,600 persons who projected global catastrophy, many of whom had no scientific training or did not even agree with the stated conclusions?

Cap and trade legislation before our Congress at this very moment is about to place a severe tax on carbon dioxide emissions under the pretext of protecting the planet from man-caused global warming. We will all pay this energy tax; the second Stossel video referred to above contains some opinions as to the magnitude of how much we might pay. Here is a very recent reference wherein one Ph D economist discusses an anticipated $3,100 per year per household additional cost (very definitely not limited to households earning more than $250,000 per year): http://townhall.com/columnists/RobertMurphy/2009/05/02/the_cost_of_cap_and_trade Predicting the cost exactly is nearly impossible. A scholarly attempt with various models is given at http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/636.pdf One of the models predicts job losses of 0.85 -1.86 million jobs in 2014 and 3.04-4.05 million jobs in 2030 (page 19 of the cited document). Is this a change our media has presented well or a change that we want?

If enacted, cap and trade legislation will have the unintended consequence of slowing down our economy at a very critical time and encouraging our businesses and jobs to move elsewhere. Raising your energy costs is not an unintended consequence but is actually an intended consequence that is expected to add 366 billion per year (some estimates are as high as 650 billion per year) to government coffers. Politicians are not renowned for understanding science, but they do understand votes. It is very easy to email or call your representatives and courteously register your informed opinion http://www.visi.com/juan/congress

The following (in bold) is copied directly from http://www.petitionproject.org/purpose_of_petition.php )
Purpose of Petition
The purpose of the Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climatological damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis.
Publicists at the United Nations, Mr. Al Gore, and their supporters frequently claim that only a few “skeptics” remain – skeptics who are still unconvinced about the existence of a catastrophic human-caused global warming emergency.
It is evident that 31,478 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,029 PhDs, are not "a few." Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,478 American scientists are not “skeptics.”
These scientists are instead convinced that the human-caused global warming hypothesis is without scientific validity and that government action on the basis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterproductively damage both human prosperity and the natural environment of the Earth.