By PETER GLEICK - FORBES
Added: Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:30:37 UTC

Via National Center for Science Education - see their new climate change section

The current favorite argument of those who argue that climate changes isn’t happening, or a problem, or worth dealing with, is that global warming has stopped. Therefore (they conclude) scientists must be wrong when they say that climate change is caused by humans, worsening, and ultimately a serious environmental problem that must be addressed by policy makers.

The problem with this argument is that it is false: global warming has not stopped and those who repeat this claim over and over are either lying, ignorant, or exhibiting a blatant disregard for the truth. Here is a tiny sample of the false claims, gleaned from various blogs, comments to my previous Forbes posts, op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, news stories, and statements from pundits who spread climate misinformation:

“The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.”

• “Current pause in global warming”
• “lack of global warming for well over 10 years now.”
• “There is no credible (statistically significant) data that says global warming is occurring”
• “fifteen years of warming, then fifteen of cooling”
• “The last decades “rate of warming” is flat.”
• “Forget global warming…no warming in 15 years.”

I could find a hundred more variations, but you get the idea. These statements are scurrilous deceptions and falsehoods. The planet is warming – an observation noted by every climate research institution tracking temperatures, the US National Academy of Sciences (over and over and over), every other national academy of sciences on the planet, and every professional society in the geosciences.

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TAGGED: EARTH SCIENCES