The theory of anthropogenic global warming is falling apart, not from the original theory, but by what appears to be a concerted effort to falsify records, data, and conclusions.
AGW was in it's heyday back in the 1990s. The temperatures had gone up for over a decade and the rise in CO2 seemed to match this rise well.
But after 1998, the temperatures flatten out while CO2 kept rising. By this time there was a large industry relying on AGW theory for their survival. From universities to "green" industries, there was a massive lobby for continued government grants and government subsidies. In order to distract people from the fact that warming was not continuing, we kept hearing horror stories from scientific studies and computer simulations that it was warming even faster than we thought and from the ultra extremists that we needed to abandon our life style and dismantle our current energy system (350 movement). And there was no time to waste because we only had 10 years to save the planet. It was a case of the "movement that cried wolf."
2005 was a watershed year for AGW alarmists. The Hurricane season spurred a record number of hurricanes the most noteworthy being Katrina. Al Gore told us this was a result of global warming. That next year he released a filming of his presentation "An Inconvenient Truth," ending up by winning an Academy Award for it. Later he and the IPCC would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts against global warming.
But by this time, the temperatures were not only not rising, but in fact were falling. Several noted scientist predicted that this cooling could last up to 30 years and was being caused by natural causes. Hurricane season came and went without the promised increase numbers and intensity and in fact were on the low side for both.
But the AGW supporters continued to insist that global warming was happening and it would be disasterous. They pointed to warming in the Arctic and the computer models as proof. But other scientist pointed out that the Arctic was actually warm in the 1930s and the temperature today is actually cooler than it was then. And the computer models did not predict the lapse of warming for the past 10 years so it was obvious that they weren't accurate.
But the AGW supporters continued to insist that global warming was happening and it would be disasterous. They pointed to warming in the Arctic and the computer models as proof. But other scientist pointed out that the Arctic was actually warm in the 1930s and the temperature today is actually cooler than it was then. And the computer models did not predict the lapse of warming for the past 10 years so it was obvious that they weren't accurate.
Then came Climategate. A treasure trove of emails and computer code from CRU was released (not sure if it was hacked into or a whistle blower released it) in November 2009. And the entire AGW industry started to fall apart.
With examples of petty jealousy, poor record keeping, conspiracies against non-conforming scientists, the use of non-peer reviewed material in the IPCC report, conflicts of interest, and just simply poor science, the AGW industry suddenly found itself in the role it sought to put skeptics in, that is, defending itself from charges of bad science and bad motives. And as this movement goes down, more and more scientists who didn't buy into the AGW theory are coming forward and getting their studies published. In fact here is an article laying out how recent peer reviewed studies disprove the AGW theory.
At last it appears that science is going back to its role to discover truth rather than advocate policies and politics.
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