Interesting contribution to the climate debate

By Jim Stergios
May 7th, 2008

John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama provides some sobering thoughts on the climate debate in a transcript from a forum held by the Center for the American Experiment.

I’ll limit myself to one nugget referring to the San Joaquin Valley:

[If] you want to return the climate back to what it was in the 19th century, you need to depopulate the [San Joaquin] valley and return it to a desert.

This is what the science shows. That’s the only way. Controlling greenhouse gases from automobile emissions will do nothing. Climate models confirm this. If greenhouse gases were causing the climate change in California, then the mountains, not the valley, should show it first. But we actually see the opposite occurring: Whereas nothing at all is happening in the mountains in terms of temperature change, everything’s happening in the valley. That’s an indication that what is happening is not due to greenhouse or carbon dioxide warming.

This is a very interesting and unorthodox read that points to land use as a huge contributing factor to climate change. Interesting thesis — would love comments with any information people have on this line of thinking.