Rutan's Oshkosh Presentation Observes "CO2 Is Not A
Pollutant"
Aviation pioneer and long-time
flight test engineer Burt Rutan has begun making a public case
against Anthropological Global Warming, or AGW, saying the data
does not support a case for global warming, or climate change of
any kind, caused by human activity.
In the presentation Rutan made twice at Oshkosh, he says man can
measure the past, but cannot create a reliable computer model that
will predict global temperatures in the future, and that warm
periods are brief, not the natural state of the planet. If
anything, he says "Warm periods are good, not bad. It would
be beneficial to have more warming than present."
In the Powerpoint presentation used at Oshkosh (link provided
below),and his accompanying notes, Rutan takes what he calls a test
pilot and engineer's approach of data analysis to the available
data on global warming, and finds it lacking. Some of the problems
are very basic. A noted rise in global temperature, he says,
corresponds directly with loss of many temperature recording
stations abandoned when the Soviet Union collapsed, most of them in
very cold climates. And deeper study of the data from ice core
samples spanning over 400 thousand years shows brief warm periods,
the current 12 thousand years being the most stable over the study,
interspersed with lengthy periods of declining temperatures, with
the total change between the two being about 12 degrees
centigrade.
Rutan does not advocate abandoning alternative energy research,
but he says his interest is in "technology, not tree hugging." His
home in the desert uses high interior thermal mass and is sheltered
by earth berms, making it very energy efficient. It also has
"provisions for converting to self-sustaining (house and plug-in
hybrid car) via adding wind generator and solar panels when it
becomes cost effective to do so," according to the notes he
provided.
Rutan notes that the nomenclature change from global warming to
climate change came as scientists began to realize that the data
didn't add up for AGW. He calls climate change "The worlds safest
bet," and says to call climate change a crisis is "silly." Climates
change all the time.
Rutan recommends the government drop its Climate Change Crisis
and Cap and Trade legislation, saying the only real effect would be
to make U.S. businesses less competitive in the global marketplace.
He says the best way for money to be spent to protect the planet is
research into a planetary defense system against asteroid strikes,
"the only real extinction threat the planet has ever had and the
only one in which Man can indeed use his intelligence and sweat to
successfully defeat."