The Fraudulent Debate on Manmade Climate Change

The anthropogenic climate change debate has centered around the question of whether or not man contributes to climate change. To answer this question shortly: Yes, man does. But the debate really needs to center around three interrelated questions: How much does man contributes to the greenhouse effect; if the answer is 'significantly,' what if anything can man do to offset the ostensible centennial trend of rising temperatures; and more fundamentally, would it be wise or far-sighted for man to attempt to change the climate (thereby changing the climate once again)?

To address the first debate, man contributes insignificantly to global greenhouse gases, particularly so in the case of carbon dioxide emissions. First of all, water vapor is 95% of the greenhouse effect, and 99.999% of water vapor in the atmosphere is naturally occurring. Secondly, carbon dioxide contributes .117% of the greenhouse effect. Thirdly, man contributes about 3.207% of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Thus, the scientific answer is that man does not contribute significantly to the greenhouse effect, purported to be the cause of the centennial trend of global warming.

In regards to the question if man should attempt to halt global warming, there are two things to bear in mind. First of all, if mobilizing for action requires rendering control to a central economic body, which would determine the allocation and use of natural resources, not only have we established that its actions would be unlikely to have a significant effect on the climate, in all likelihood, it's results compared to the status quo would be worse. Central command economies are notorious for their misuse of resources and their disregard for human health; this is a direct consequence of the inherently anti-humanistic philosophy that animates them and their inability to account for resource scarcity. Secondly, markets are better at stewarding the environment because firms are interested in efficiency, long-term investment and profits, milking natural resource supplies, and replenishing stores of renewable resources. The price competitiveness of alternative goods, including alternative resources, virtually guarantees maximum economic efficiency; while the openness of the market system gives rise to new technologies; both make the adaptation of societies to external variables like climate change much more smooth, incremental, and stable over the long term.

Thirdly, in regards to the wisdom of acting to halt climate change, people tend to forget that civilization rose with global warming since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. The idea that man can single-handedly reverse the course of "climate change" is not only Sysiphean in its absurdity, it is possibly self-defeating.

Who is to say the moment we take action in the name of affecting the climate, for example, stripping our industrial base and inhibiting development in third world nations, that the world will not be hit by another ice age the likes of the Little Ice Age that began in the sixteenth century and we will be set that much further back in terms of advancing civilization?

Should the sheer fact that man contributes to climate change give the government carte blanche to regulate all aspects of the economy, by appeal to the "dirty hands" argument? Only in the mind of a totalitarian politician or a cloistered bureaucrat, neither of which tend to have any appreciable respect for individual rights or the market, is the answer an indisputable yes.