THE NEXT ICE AGE - NOW!

19 May 07 - "It's all going to be a joke in five years," meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton (New Zealand) this week.

Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained.

A combination of misinterpreted and misguided science, media hype, and political spin had created the current hysteria and it was time to put a stop to it.

"It is time to attack the myth of global warming," he said.

Water vapor is responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, and is vital to keep the world warm, he explained.

"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."

The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contribute only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.

However, carbon dioxide as a result of man's activities is only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc make similarly minuscule contributions: 0.066, 0.047 and 0.046 per cent respectively.

"That ought to be the end of the argument, there and then," he said.

"We couldn't do it (change the climate) even if we wanted to because water vapour dominates."

"It's become a witch-hunt; a Salem witch-hunt," he said.

See entire article by Andrew Swallow at The Timaru Herald

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4064691a6571.html
Thanks to Phillip Brennan, Chuck Hummer, and Dylan Newell for this link